
Class jl Co fe^. 
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COPYRIGHT DEPOSrr. 



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JERRY SIMPSON 



THE STORY OF 



JERRY SIMPSON 



BY 



ANNIE li. DIGGS 



JANE SIMPSON, Publisher 

WICHITA, KANSAS 



•Sells 



MAY li> ii^U^ 

COPY 6. 






COPYRIGHT 1908 
BY JANE SIMPSON 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 









HoBSON Printing Company 

PRINTERS AND BINDERS 
WICHITA, KANSAS 



DEDICATION 

This tribute to the memory of my hus- 
band I dedicate to his friends in all walks of 
life, the rich and the poor; the learned and 
the unlettered; the widely kno^vn and the 
great unknown, whom he held in close affec- 
tion and to whom he was always loyal. 

JANE SIMPSOK 



CONTENTS 

PART FIRST 

Page. 

Portrait, Jeriy Simpson Frontispiece 

1. Jane and Jerry 7 

2. The Warp and Woof 13 

3. The Journey Begun 21 

4. In Battle With the Storm 27 

5. Little Hallie ^'^ 

6. The Home in Barber County 41 

7. Political Evolution 51 

8. The Farmers Alliance 61 

9. An Alliance Nemesis 71 

10. The Peoples Party 77 

11. The Personnel of the Peoples Party 95 

12. Sockless Socrates and Prince Hal 103 

13. Jerry Arrives at Washington 115 

14. Senator Long and Jerry Simpson 123 

15. Jerry in Congress 135 

16. Populism Enroute 155 

17. A Symposium 177 

18. The Babes in the Woods 185 

19. The Simple Life 193 

20. Old Friends and New Days 205 

21. The Journey Ended 209 

PART SECOND 

Portraits, Family Group, between 222-223 

Tributes from Friends 225 

List of Speeches in Congress . 272 



JAIs^E AND JEEKY. 



Jane and Jerry. 

One night in the winter of 1869, at Jack- 
son Center, Indiana, a little village close 
swept by the breezes of Lake Michigan, a 
social affair of heart-throbbing importance 
was in progress. It was ^'Spelling School" 
night at the village school house. The pret- 
ty country girls had smartened up their Sun- 
day frocks and maybe added a new ribbon to 
their satisfying costumes. The stalwart boys 
had greased their boots and, perchance, as 
was the fashion of that day, smoothed their 
locks by application of sweet scented oil. 
The school room buzzed with happiness for 
each girl and boy had earned this good time 
by good days works; moreover, none in all 

7 



THE STOKY OF 

that neighborliood was far out circumstanced 
by another. 

On this especial night, a newcomer, 
Young Simpson, a sailor lad, just in from a 
season on the Lakes, was running gauntlet of 
opinion. And jolly well he ran, for he was 
readiest of all that company with quip and 
jest. Good humored and as breezy as the 
Lakes whereon he had spent years of whole- 
some life. 

^'He's not like the others," said Jane 
Cape. 

^ow Jane was a round, rosy, slip of a 
girl who first saw daylight in Cumberland- 
shire, England. She was the merriest, sauci- 
est, daringest one of all that jolly company. 
She was a bit imperious too, despite her small 
person and her appealing, big, blue eyes. So 
when Jane whispered to the big boy who was 
choosing up sides: ''Choose Jerry Simpson 

8 



JEKKY SIMPSON. 

next to me/' she had her way. 

"Why did they choose me," said Jerry, 
"I can't spell." 

"I^ever mind," said happy Jane, "I can 
spell for both of us." 

Jerry went down the first round. Vain- 
glorious Jane sat down the second, and would 
have been mightily chagrined save that she 
was so happy snuggled up to Jerry while he 
told her, on this, their second time of meet- 
ing, that he had ''thought about her," and, 
might he see her home. , 

The spelling match was long drawn out. 
The two sides stood up bravely. The ''giver 
out" turned on his list of catch words. Many 
a boy and girl triumphed over the long, hard 
words only to be tripped on some simple one, 
until one by one the spellers sat them down 
even as in the years since come and gone so 
many of that company have dropped off to 

9 



THE STORY OF 

sleep the good, long sleep. 

Before the champion speller of that night 
stood on the floor alone, all flushed with pride 
and glad with hearty handshakes, it had come 
to young Simpson to know that he wanted 
more than all things else in life to have the 
blue eyed Jane to be his own for all the time 
to come. 

In other, stranger years to come, this 
sailor lad so broad of smile, so kind of heart, 
so brave and quaint of speech, shall stand in 
many a country schoolhouse, champion for 
human rights and none shall spell him down 
until his great story, bravely, quaintly told, 
sets truth a-m arching on. 



10 



THE WAEP AISTD WOOF. 



II. 

The Warp and Woof. 

In tlie late Sixties the people of the 
Western States were for the most part poor 
of pocket but rich in ways of industry and of 
small possessions. Business integrity was 

on top. 

^^Your word is good enough security for 
me without a scratch of pen/' was answer 
neighbor often gave to neighbor with a loan 
of cash. 

The ugly words graft and boodler had 
not been spawned. 

There be memories of such clean days 
that sometimes clutch the heartstrings of mil- 
lionaires stifling amidst their heavy scented 
luxuries. The call of husking bee, of spelling 
match, of singing school, harks back to simple 

13 



THE STORY OF 

days before big money came to set up glitter- 
ing things that lure young men and maids 
to glare and blare of life, and trade them 
feverish falsities for wholesome, homely ways. 

In those good days when Jerry courted 
Jane, it was enough for any girl if her young 
man had strong right arm to till the fields or 
was skillful at some handicraft and so could 
earn a modest home for her. It was enough 
for the young man if marriage dower of his 
beloved were but a cow, a feather bed, and 
some homespun things. Or, perchance, lack- 
ing even these their sweet venture ran no risk 
where health and hope stood sponsor for the 
sacrament. 

Those were days when men believed in 
public men from Justice of the Peace to Sen- 
ator, days when the Fourth of July meant in- 
spiration to youngsters and reconsecration to 
their elders. Good days they were for in- 

14 



. JEEEY SIMPSOTT. 

graining of character: good days to shuttle 
through the loom of time and make the warp 
and Avoof of life. 

And good days and ways had gone before 
for many Simpson generations back. There 
are in the family today, official documents, 
signed by Scottish dignitaries, which attest 
the sterling w^orth and standing of Jerry 
Simpson's ancestors given when they sailed 
for the N^ew World. 

Jerry was born a subject of Queen Vic- 
toria, in Westmorland County, 'New Bruns- 
wick, March 31, 1842. His father was a '^ 
masterful man in mind and body; he was a 
great reader and Jerry found at home many 
of the best of the older English authors. 

Jerry's mother was a Washburn of 
Welch and English ancestry. A strong, self- 
poised woman of most commanding presence, 
of whom Jerry and all her admiring children 

15 



THE STOEY OF 

said: "She is remarkable; tlie blessedest 
mother in the world." 

The Simpson family circumstances were 
quite above the poverty line but there were 
many deprivations incident to time and place. 
The father owned a saw-mill which did good 
business for those days, but there was a large 
family and in the Simpson gospel there was 
a trinity of words that ran: Integrity, In- 
dustry, Independence ; and Jerry bred on 
these, hired himself out a year before he 
reached his teens to a neighbor for six dollars 
a month. The year he reached fourteen he 

went as cook on a Lake steamer. From that 
time on, save for brief intervals, for twenty - 
three years the Great Lakes knew his sturdy, 

faithful service as common sailor, mate and 

captain. 

Out on the solemn waters, under the 

more solemn skies, Young Simpson queried 



16 



JERKY SIMPSON. 

miTch of life and destiny. 

Among the books lie read were Dickens, 
Carlyle, Scott, Burns, Shakespeare, Hugo, 
Shelly, the Bible and Tom Paine. 

He summed up all that his self-commun- 
ings and his reading brought to him in his 
^'religious creed" which ran: Life is good; 
Church creeds are a misfit ; I love my fellow 
men. 

And this sufficed for his early years. 

Who can ever tell which shows the larger 
balance in the make up of a man, the books 
he reads, the happenings to his life; or the 
native qualities — the timber and texture born 
with him. However that may be, certain it 
is, that Young Simpson saw life Dickenswise 
to a rich and rare degree. So quick was he 
to see the droll and humorous, so swift was he 
with sympathy, so militant was he toward 
shams, hypocracy, and injustice that he was 

17 



JERKY SIMPSOK 

in close fellowship witli the Engii Ii Master. 
Did the fore-knowing fates see in all this 
a preparation for a time when the whole na- 
tion was, first to deride, and then to listen 
to Jerry Simpson ? 



18 



THE JOURNEY BEGUN. 



Ill 

The Journey Begun. 

Jerry Simpson and Jane Cape, a whole- 
some, rollicking, care-free pair, were married 
at Biiffalo,:N^ew York, October 12, 1870, and 
for their bridal trip they went a-sailing on 
the ''Summer Cloud." 

Jane Cape had been well trained by her 
good English mother in all housewifely ways. 
She had been taught that idleness and un- 
thrift were sinful. And so it seemed a fine 
and fitting thing to go as cook on the schoon- 
er. Summer Cloud, of which her husband 
was First Mate. 

On those glorious nights when the young 
couple walked the deck encompassed by the 
witchery that comes not elsewhere than upon 
the waters it seemed to them as if there cou'ld 

21 



THE STOEY OF 

be no misery or meanness, but only joy and 
kindliness, in all God's blessed world. 

The world of books in wbicb Jerry had 
lived so delightedly was an unknown world 
to Jane. So for a time he closed the printed 
page and read the sweeter book of life with 
the blue eyed girl whose lot was cast with his. 

AVith a ricli burr, his legacy from Scott- 
ish forbears, he would recite, ''A man's a man 
for a' that;" ''The Cotter's Saturday :N'ight," 
and numberless choice things which his fine 
memory placed at his command. And often- 
est of all, like some refrain fitted to all tunes, 
he would say : 

" to thine own self be true; 



And it must follow, as the night the day, 
Thou canst not then be false to any man." 

"I do not quite understand you," Jane 
would sometimes say in response to Jerry's 

22 



JEEKY SIMPSOE". 

commentaries iipon the times and ways of 

humankind. 

^^ISTever mind, Jane, you will some day/' 

he would reply with smile so broad and with 

such perfect patience that the little wife did 

not feel chilled by any gap between them. 

There was a flavor of chivarly — a defer- 
ential, old-school mannerism in Jerry Simp- 
son's demeanor toward women. There was 
indescribable gentleness in his ways with 
little Jane as if he felt that his abounding 
health and strength were given him in trust 
to serve and shield the weaker one. 

Days when the seas ran high poor little 
sea-sick Jane declared that she could tell, 
though groaning in her berth, just when Jer- 
ry took the wheel from another and steadied 
the boat with his more masterful hand. 

Thus was begun their long journey on 

the buffeting sea of life and neither one had 
any care or sorrow. 

23 



m BATTLE WITH THE STORM. 



IV. 



In Battle With The Storm. 

The waters of the Great Lakes some- 
times lash themselves into a great storm-fury, 
as if to rival in ferocity the raging temper of 
the ocean. On such a deadly time, one of 
the largest trading ships afloat the Lakes, the 
^'J. H. Rutter," Captain Jerry Simpson, was 
in tow of a steam harge off the west coast of 
Michigan. The fierce duel between the crew 
of the Rutter and the angry storm waged 
evenly a whole day but when night came the 
storm had gained and held the ship and the 
ship's crew at its mercy. The two crafts 
v/ere torn apart, the Rutter's steer mg- 

27 



THE STOKY OF 

geer became useless. The men on that 
helpless vessel saw death's face staring in 
their own. Captain Simpson's alert devices 
kept the ship alive through that long night of 
deadly peril. At break of day the Rutter 
ran aground. The storm abated; the life 
peril passed, then the Captain, unheedful of 
the stress and strain of the soul-and-body 
wrenching hours, betook himself to the saving 
of the ship. The Rutter was aground off 
Ludington, Michigan. Captain Simpson 
went ashore with his small boats and soon 
persuaded forty landsmen to help unload the 
cargo. The men worked with a will under 
the spell of Captain Simpson's cheery com- 
mands until, the task half done, the defiant 
wind arose and baffled CA^ery move. The 
landsmen were unable to keep their feet and 
Captain Simpson, aided by his brother 
James, lifted the men bodily to safer 

?8 



JEEEY SIMPSOE". 

places and lashed them to the rigging. From 
this perilous plight thej were rescued by a 
life saving crew. The owners of the Eutter 
were notified of the struggle for the salvation 
of their ship while its outcome was yet un- 
certain. They sent hourly messages to the 
little village in Indiana where the Captain's 
wife, with their little one, listened to the 
storm with such cold fear as only a sailor's 
wife with husband on the wild sea can know. 
It is a prime business disaster for a 
captain to lose a boat entrusted to his com- 
mand. But Jerry Simpson was a game, grace- 
ful loser. Those hours of battle with the 
storm etched lines that never left his face 
but he never whined or whimpered in his 
life. He fully expected to lose his rank and 
his engagement with the ship's owners. 

Instead they gave him a larger, better 
boat. 

29 



LITTLE HALLIE. 



Little Hallie. 

If life had been full and satisfactory for 
Young Simpson, First Mate of the Summer 
Cloud, with his days' works well done, with 
his growing popularity among his employers, 
with his steadily increasing knowledge of his 
craft and its related business ashore, and, 
above all with his adoring, blue eyed Jane, 
what must it have been when Little Hallie, 
his own, little, little child, came to make for 
him a larger heaven on land and sea. 

'No prosaic pen should try to tell of those 
ecstatic hours when the young father held his 
child in his strong arms. His watchful care 
and his great tenderness were such as rarest 
mothers show. Over and over in softest 



33 



THE STORY OF 

tones he sang to her, ''I'm dreaming now of 
ITallie/' and that song so full of melody and 
sentiment gave the little one her name. 

Those who were with Jerry in those 
days said : "How odd he is in his ways with 
Hallie. He talks to her, laughs, jokes, and 
quotes verse as if she Avere a grown up com- 
panion." They tell how, v/ith a queer catch 
in his voice, as if he were choking with joy, 
he would say, "See, just see, how Hallie 
understands ! She knows, she knows just 
what I say to her." And truly it would 
seem, by time the child was two years old, as 
if she did understand. Her great serious 
brown eyes, her fine forehead, her w^insome 
and expressive face and her quaint ways 
placed her in a class not common. As is the 
Avay of men adrift from home, the ship's crew 
idolized her. She learned to walk first on 
her little sea legs, and so she had to learn a 

34 



JERRY SIMPSOK 

second time, another kind of walk, when she 
went ashore, for there at Grandma's house 
the steady, stupid floor jumped up and hit 
her hard. 

When Hallie was in her third year, First 
Mate Simpson won his promotion to a Cap- 
taincy. He was given a larger boat with 
more important business. The purchase of 
ship supplies, the hiring of the crew, the lad- 
ing of the cargo, were done at Chicago. In 
a little village forty miles away, little Hallie 
fell ill of scarlet fever. Captain Simpson's 
arduous and responsible work proceeded day 
by day without interruption, but so soon as 
his day's work v/as done he boarded a train 
v/hich took him but part way to his sick 
child, the remaining eleven miles he v/alked 
across a lonely, unfrequented stretch of coun- 
try. He relieved the mother of the care of 
the little one during his stay and before the 

35 



THE STOEY OF 

dawn of day took the return walk and went- 
to work on time : this he did each day for two 
v/eeks until little Hallie Avas past all danger. 

The purpose was growing with Captain 
Simpson to become a landsman, although he 
greatly loved his work and life upon the 
water. But his little Hallie must have a 
more befitting home — the best surroundings 
find advantages he could earn for her. All 
that he and Jane had missed, their little child 
should have. He had a few thousand dol- 
lars, the savings of twenty-three years. So 
he gave up the sea, and betimes a pretty 
home was built in Kansas for Jane, Hallie 
and a baby boy. Besides this farm home 
Jerry owned a small saw-mill. 

One day, little Hallie, the chum, confid- 
ant and comrade of her happy father for 
seven wonderful years stepped gaily forth to 
walk home with papa from the mill. Jerry 

36 



JEEKY SIMPSOK 

saw her coming, lie also saw a great log roll- 
ing toward her, and then, O God help him, 
he saw the crnel log roll over her and crush 
ont all her sweet, young life. How did he 
live and breathe a-seeing this ? God only 
knows. He lent his strength to help the 
men raise the log from the crushed form. 
He took all that was left to him of his little 
Hallie and held her close, close as in those 
first, ecstatic days when they brought her to 
him on the Summer Cloud. He held her 
thus for hours, while he lay prone on the 
floor of the home he had built for her, resist- 
ing all efforts to take the little form from 
him. 

He could not bear the torture of having 
any stranger speak his well meant words of 
comfort, so they had no minister for the 
funeral. Just as the little coffin lid was to 
be fastened do^^ni, Jerry stepped forward 

37 



THE STOEY OF 

and looked at the sweet face again and the 
words he uttered apostrophizing the child 
linger in the memory of those who heard ; so 
marvelonsly beautiful were they, that the pity 
iS; no record was ever made of them. Doubt- 
less the memory of them lingered not with 

the stricken man after that hour of exaltation 
passed. 

From that day on, it could not be written 
that Jane and Jerry had no sorrow in their 
lives. 



38 



THE HOME IK BAEBER C0U:N'TY. 



VI. 

The Home in Barber County. 

One morning, years ago, just as the day 
was breaking, had you been passing the 
Simpson ranch in southern Kansas, you 
might have said, here is isolation, here is 
lonliness. But had you stepped inside the 
Simpson home you woukl have found no 
lonliness — not even dullness; indeed you 
Avould have joined in the laugh with Jane 
and Jerry over their prank of the night just 
passed. They had sat up all night a-reading 
the Arabian ISTights. When the night ar- 
rived they had settled themselves for the 
usual evening reading aloud. The hours 
raced -away; in all reason, and remembering 
the morrow's work, they should have taken 

41 



THE STORY OF 

sleep, instead with much delight and in the 
spirit of their frequent frolicking they said: 
"we'll read just a little more;'' meanwhile 
their small son, Lester, begging not to be put 
to bed, lay with his head cuddled up to 
mother and his feet in Daddy's lap, while 
they read on until the daylight came. 

It was to Barber County that Jane and 
Jerry came when they sold their sorrow- 
darkened home in northern Kansas. Here 
Jerry took up a claim and invested in other 
land and in a herd of cattle. The first three 
years of cattle raising prospered fairly well. 
Then the most severe winter ever known 
in that section of country followed, herds 
of cattle perished and Jerry lost the accumu- 
lations of a life time of toil on land and sea. 
But never in any of the fateful times that 
took away his earnings and left him naked 
handed to begin all over again did his broad 

42 



JEKEY SIMPSON. 

smile wear off or the note of cheerfulness 
leave his speech. 

It was from this Barber County home, 
near Medicine Lodge, that Jerry Simpson 
was twice chosen bv his fellow citizens, first 
in 1886, then 1888, to represent them on 
Greenback and Union Labor issues. Both 
times he was defeated by Mr. T. A. McNeal, 
the republican candidate. Both ''Tom'' Mc- 
iS^eal and Jerry Simpson were past masters 
of scathing wit and biting sarcasm which 
they freely used toward each other in their 
campaigns. Nevertheless a warm friendship 
sprang up between them, and in the spring 
of 1890, when Tom McNeal was elected 
mayor of Medicine Lodge, he appointed 
Jerry city marshal. The salary was $40 
per month, but it w^as gladly received, and 
the modest duties were as faithfully per- 
formed as if the office had been of national 

43 



THE STORY OF 

magnitude. 

It was from Medicine Lodge that Jerrj 
Simpson was called to take part in that won- 
derful campaign of 1890. 

Wlien he was nominated for Congress 
he was without money to meet the incidental 
expenses, but his ardent admirers in all sec- 
tions of the ''Big 7th" district contributed 
the necessary funds; many of them gladly 
giving sums which they could ill afford. 
These old friends Jerry held in his heart 
of hearts and always came perilously close 
to quivering lip and moistened eye when- 
ever he spoke of their faithfulness and de- 
votion. 

Jerry Simpson believed as President 
Roosevelt has said, that: ^'xV man should 
join a political organization and attend the 
primaries; that he should not be content to 
be governed, but should do his part in the 

44 



JEEEY SIMPS0:N'. 

work.'' It is true, Jerry did not believe 
ill remaining with any political organization 
after it failed to represent liis convictions 
or to serve in all honesty the interests of the 
people. He reveled in the opportunity to 
speak to the people upon the great questions 
of the times. His years of thought and 
study, together with his native qualities, 
made him a logical leader. He translated 
the theories of politics swiftly into their 
practical power to readjust social conditions. 
He made his hearers hear and see how 
money meant morals, and how all just eco- 
nomics spelled homes and human happiness. 
It was in Barber County that a dan- 
gerous and prolonged illness came upon 
Mrs. Simpson. The invalidism that fol- 
lowed was of so trying a nature that it marks 
the tender care, the marvelous patience, 
shown her by her husband, such as Only 

45 



THE STOKY OE 

mothers, or men of heroic mold are capable. 
Poor little Jane used to say at times dur- 
ing her years of weakness: '^Oh, Jerry, 
how can you be so patient and so good to 
me?" And, in his beaming fashion, he 
would say, ^'Why, Jane, how else should I 
be with you ?" 

After little Hallie's death, the father 
lavished on his baby boy a twofold affection. 
There was no display of weak indulgence, 
but ever a great gentleness. From Lester's 
infancy, on to his years of manhood, he 
never had from his father one harsh word 
or any reprimand. The mother, less calm 
of temper, and less a believer in non-coer- 
cion, administered the customary parental 
punishings, whereupon Jerry would say: 
''Don't scold the child, Jane, he'll come out 
all right." Then to Lester, ''Come now, 
little son, let's talk over this whole matter." 

46 



JERKY SIMPSON. 

It often took long argument and mncli pa- 
tience but never once did the father assume 
dictatorship. 

These intimate domestic facts are here- 
in told, because they show the self-poise, the 
ingrained democracy, of the man whose 
hiter fame caused such widespread wonder. 

He had reflected much upon the springs 
of human action, and so discriminated be- 
tween the evil doer and his evil deeds. His 
serene, unswervable belief in the essential 
goodness of mankind was a saving grace with 
him; he cherished no resentments. This 
Vv^ell-spring of good fellowship never ran 

dry, and that was the great reason wdiy he 
drew men to him in public life and made 
them so strangely forgiving and fond of him 
even when he lashed them mercilessly. 

47 



THE STORY OF 

There was no miracle or mistake about 
the fame that came to Jerry Simpson; it y 
was merely that the man was ready when 
the time arrived. 



48 



POLITICAL EVOLUTIO]^. 



VII. 

Political Evolution. 

The voice of the waters called Jerry 
Simpson throiighoiit all of his days. The 
freedom, the joy, the strength of his life 
had been inbreathed as he sailed. Away 
from the distracting Babel — away from the 
fret and blur of elbow- jostling life ashore, 
he had found the basic principles by which 
he was destined to test the varying phrases 
of social and political events. He had cast 
fast anchor upon the bed-rock of Justice and 
1^'air Play. 

Whatever barred the way to full, SAveet 
life to ^ny human kind, he squared himself 
to fight against. Whatever conditions, so- 

51 



THE STOEY OF 

cial or political, failed to secure to each and 
all fair chance for their best endeavor, fell 
short of license to continue. When the war 
between the I^orth and South menaced the 
Union, Jerry said: 'The people need a big 
ship to sail the stormy sea of life. Our 
good Ship of State flies the Declaration of 
Independence; she must not be scuttled. 
Furthermore, hand-cuffs and auction blocks 
for fellows who work, don't heave-to alone-- 
side of justice.'' 

These were the reasons Young Simp- 
son gave when he left the Lake service and 
■enlisted in Company A, Twelfth Illinois In- 
fantry. 

A few months of army service was ter- 
minated by the first severe sickness of his 
life. 

Jerry Simpson was so inately and un- 
swervingly democratic that he could not be 

62 



JEEKY SIMPSON^. 

other than Eepublican in politics — in those 
days. He cast his first vote in 1864 for 
Abraham Lincoln. 

Jerry's early passion for books was suc- 
ceeded by devotion to newspapers and such 
current literature as bore upon social and 
political problems. Among his treasures 
that went down with the "J. H. Kutter" 
were some bound volumes of the Congres- 
sional Eecord which he had read in quest 
of information as to what the great Ameri- 
can statesmen, in whom he religiously be- 
lieved, proposed to do in the w\^.y of safe- 
guarding the rights and fortunes of the 
whole people. 

With a view to the comfort of his 
family, Captain Simpson re^ig-ned his com- 
naand and bade final goodby to life on the 
Lakes. He located temporarily in northern 
Lidiana, at the time when the Grange was 

63 



THE STORY OF 

ii! the liigh noon of its nseful days. The 
story of the solid service rendered to Ameri- 
can progress by that farmer organization is 
not half well enough known. Wherever 
rural life was touched by the wisdom and the 
poetry of the Grange, there homes were em- 
bellished, individual life ennobled and social 
ccmsciousness aroused. The graces and the 
prosaic practicalities were alike cultivated 
by the Grange. It was through the Grange 
that the American farmers as a class made 
their first incursion into the economics of co- 
operation and railway transportation. In 
all these Grange studies, Jerry Simpson was 
an eager and thorough student. His clear 
swift logic took him unbewildered, straight 
through the mazes of discussion on the 
money question. The sophistry and technics 
of the money craft left him undazed. 
Straightway he put the broad test of fair 

54 



JEEEY SIMPSON. 

play to money manipulation. He found the 
system lacking justice in its usage and ap- 
plication; it fostered special privileges — 
hence his vote for Peter Cooper, Green- 
lacker. 

Jerry Simpson did not ^'drift" to Kan- 
sas. He never drifted anywhere. He con- 
sulted a purposeful chart. The great story 
of Kansas — the birthmarks of the young 
state, baptized in freedom's blood, appealed 
to him. In 1878 he came to Jackson County, 
its superb country, its rich possibilities, won 
him. Here, said he, will I cast my lot and 
build a home for my loved ones. The 
crushing sorrow of a swift coming day cast 
no shadow over that laughing landscape. 
Jane, little Hallie and baby Lester were 
there and Jerry was in love with life on 
land or sea. Years afterward, when Vic- . 
tor Murdock asked him why he came to Kan- 

55 



THE STORY OF 

sas, Jerry replied: ''The magic of a Jcer- 
nel, the untclicraft in a seed; the desire to 
put something into the ground and see it 
grow and reproduce its hind. That's why I 
came to Kansas/' 

Presently the Knights of Labor came 
to bring to the toilers in the American shops 
and factories something of the unification 
and enlightment which the Grange had 
brought to the farmers. The noble motto of 
the organization: ^^An injury to one is the 
concern of all," found swift response in 
Jerry's justice-loving soul. Hence, his 
affiliation with the Union Labor party fol- 
lowed as inevitably as night follows the day. 
About this period in the political evolu- 
tion of Jerry Simpson, he came upon Henry 
George's Progress and Poverty. Then, in- 
deed, he knew he had found, in all its re- 
ligious heights and depths, his own abiding, 

66 



JEEEY SIMPSOK 

political gospel. When lie finished reading 
the book he declared his convictions as fol- 
lows : Systems of finance, methods of trans- 
portation, however important to human pro- 
gress, are but conveniences of the passing 
time; governments may deal with them in 
accordance with the shifting conditions of 
a growing civilization. But the great neces- 
saries of human existence grow in the 
ground, hence the first and greatest obliga- 
tion of government is to secure freedom of 
land to all the people. With this solid base 
upon which to operate, all that is essential 
to the orderly development of society will 
follow. This bounteous, beautiful, bread- 
giving earth is mother to all God^s family; 
Avhom God hath joined let no man put as- 
under. 

He had early observed the retrogres- 
sion of political parties after the first clean 

57 



THE STORY OF 

years of organization for their specific pur- 
poses; and so he read them all his declara- 
tion of independence. ^'Parties/' said he, 
^'are born for principles, not principles for 
parties, they are merely ladders upon which 
truth and wisdom may climb for a season." 
So, is it not clear, that the political march 
of Jerry Simpson, first Republican, then 
Greenbacker, then Union Labor, finally Sin- 
gle Taxer, was a steady and orderly proces- 
sion in the onward struggle for justice and 
fair play ? It was, moreover, a thorough, 
though unconscious schooling for a part 
that he was later on to play in a great na- 
tional drama. 



58 



THE FARMEKS ALLIAIN^CE. 



VIII. 

The Farmers* Alliance. 

The Grange had been in about ten 
j'ears of decline when the Farmers' Alliance 
came into existence. Those ten intervening 
years of toil, early and late, in the cotton 
fields of the sunny South, and in the wheat 
and corn fields of the boundless West, h:id 
made life a little grayer, a little less buoy- 
ant for the farmer folk. They were brought 
to face the fact that they were not getting 
ahead in the great world of prosperity in 
proportion to tlie labor they performed or 
the service they rendered. So they went 
into the Alliance to figure out what to d.-> 
about it.' The Grange was full of poetry; 
the Alliance was full of politics. 

61 



THE STORY OF 

Looking back upon the stirring national 
drama which the American farmers placed 
upon the boards at that time, one sees that the 
comedy was furnished by the spectators — ^the 
outsiders upon whom blank consternation fell 
as they saw the farmers I^orth and South 
flouting old sectionalism, invading politics, 
shouting their demands, singing their gospel 
songs, and disporting themselves like conquer- 
ing hosts. The hitherto docile farmer was in 
rebellion. He said that he came into town 
asking how much he might have for the things 
he had to sell, and how much he must give 

for the things he had to buy. He said he was 
an anomaly in all the world of trade and 

commercialism; he was a questioner at both 

» 

ends of the bargain. He must say by your 
leave, sirs, to speculators in cotton and grain, 
and, by your leave, sirs, to protected manu- 
facturers who held what other goods his daily 
needs required. 

62 



JEREY SIMPSO:^. 

There were many smaller, localized, un- 
related farmer organizations preceeding tlie 
x\lliance. The "Farmers Mutual Benefit As- 
sociation, the Agricultural "WTieel, and, Farm- 
ers Unions, in nearly every state in the 
Union. There were men of ability and of 
broad intelligence in each of the organiza- 
tions who saw the futility and the folly of 
their isolation and its consequent impotency 
to correct the injustice of which they com- 
plained. 

A call was sent to all the farmers organ- 
izations in the country to meet at St. Louis, 
in 1889, to effect consolidation. 

The Farmers Alliance of the South was 
the best organized, so the strength and num- 
bers of the other organizations went to that 
one. It was then that speculators, politi- 
cians, and manipulators in general sat up 
and took notice. 

63 



THE STORY OF 

' The new Alliance had a ritual, pass words, 
grips, signs, dnes, and other unknown quan- 
tities with which the unhorny-handed wore 
not on speaking terms. The Alliance had a 
religious tone. The official list of each lodge 
included a chaplain. The meetings were 
prayer opened and benediction closed. There 
was a burial service; an oj^ligation to care 
for the sick and to aid the needy. Moreover, 
there was a national organ, able and astute, 
published at the national capital. There 
were state and county newspapers, exponents 
of Alliance principles, in nearly every state, 
South and West. The consolidated organiz- 
ation formulated specific demands related to 
national legislation. There Avas a national 
Alliance Lecturer whose business it was to 
systematize and unify instruction relative to 
their legislative demands. Each state, each 
county, and each lodge had its own especial 

64 



JEEEY SIMPSOK. 

lecturer who must pass along the instructions 
concerning the farmers demands. Thus the 
Alliance became a school of economics. It 
was a masterly method, and its momentum 
was stupenduous. 

Besides the farmer and his Avife and sons 
and daughters, there were eligible to mem- 
bership, the country doctor, country parson, 
the country school teacher, and editors of 
newspapers devoted to the demands of the 
Alliance. 

In 1890, at Ocala, Florida, the Farm- 
er's Alliance added, ^'Industrial Union," to 
its name, and received to membership the 
workers from the shops, the factories and 
mines. This list very nearly calls the roll 
of essential service to any community or 
country. It would seem that in all reason 
these useful and desirable citizens might de- 
mand financial legislation which would place 

65 



THE STOEY OF 

the money of tlie nation as easily at their 
convenience as it was at the convenience of 
the legislation-favored classes. It would 
seem within reason that they might demand 
of their representatives in Congress such 
legislation as would restrain the transporta- 
tion companies from taking all the toll the 
traffic would bear. It would seem to be 
within the realm of reason that all these use- 
ful citizens might demand that the land, 
with all its treasures of forests, mines and 
fertile fields, should be safe-guarded against 
the rapacious speculator and the greedy grab- 
ber so that there might be a heritage within 
the reach of their children and their child- 
ren's children. 

"Money, Land and Transportation ;" these 
were the vital themes which engaged the 
thought and employed the speech of Alliance 
members for two solid years. And they were 

66 



JEERY SIMPSOK 

years of systematic, simultaneous study such 
as had never before engrossed that class of 
citizens in any nation in all the civilized 
world. 

Jerry Simpson was at that time living 
on his ranch in Barber County, near Medi- 
cine Lodge. The Alliance claimed him. He 
was prepared by years of thought, reading 
and experience. He was by nature and by 
most genial personality deserving of the ex- 
traordinary fealty and affectionate regard 
of his neighbors. 

And thus the curtain rose upon the pro- 
logue of a greater part for Jerry Simpson 
than any prophet had foretold. 



67 



AN ALLIANCE NEMESIS. 



IX. 

An Alliance Nemesis. 

Out in western Kansas, one day in 1890, 
a great crowd was gathered in a grove where 
a two days political picnic was in progress. 
Out of the Farmers Alliance there had grown 
a new political party. 

Kansas had been bom, christened and 
baptized Republican, and would stay so 
world without end, so thought all men and 
women outside of the Alliance. 

This particular meeting had been gotten 
up by the new ^'Peoples Party." An invita- 
tion had been sent to Colonel Phillips, the 
Republican candidate for Congress from the 
Fifth District, to meet John Davis, the 
Peoples Party candidate, in joint debate. 

Colonel Phillips was at that time holding 

71 



THE STORY OF 

a seat in Congress. He had tlie prestige of 
official position. Moreover he was personally 
popular. He was erudite, suave, and elo- 
quent. 

John Davis, the Peoples Party candi- 
date, was able, dignified, and greatly es- 
teemed, but he lacked platform experience 
and the personal polish of his opponent. 

A large percentage of the new party 
men present at this gathering had voted times 
before for Colonel Phillips. Party ties are 
strong. The situation was tense. Both 
candidates had spoken. Colonel Phillips 
had surpassed himself in fervid presentation 
of the claims of the dear old Republican 
Partv that Abraham Lincoln loved so well. 
The dense crowd had listened spell bound. 
It seemed to the Republican orator, as he 
closed with a matchless peroration, and sat 
down flushed and glowing, that he had re- 

72 



JEEKY SIMPSO:Nr. 

captured the voters and won the victory. It 
did not seem to count that there was no 
noisy demonstration. The solemn silence 
gave even better promise than applause. 

Hardly was Colonel Phillips seated, 
when way at the back of the crowd, a high- 
pitched voice sent out a shrill, long-drawn, 
quavering cry, which shivered through the 
crowd as if freighted with anguish and alarm: 
'^Say you I Say you ! Say you !" 
Turning to whence the strange challenge 
came, there towered the tall, guant figure of 
an old woman. With calico sunbonnet 
pushed back from her grizzled head, with 
piteously poor apparel, she stood a very sym- 
bol of ill-requited labor. With face aflame, 
with long, bony arm stretched at length, with 
toil-distorted hand, and fearsome forefinger 
pointed at the perspiring orator, as if sum- 
moning him before the bar of eternal justice, 

73 



THE STORY OF 

she continued her weird chant : 

"Say you ! It aint no use you a-talkin', 
an' a-talkin', an' a-talkin'. It aint no use 
you a-talkin', you aint never Done nothin' 
for Us, an' you never v^ill." 

If any Alliance man in all that crowd 
had wavered under the spell of Colonel Phil- 
lips' eloquence ; if there had been any tugging 
of heart strings toward old and cherished 
party affiliations, they were called ofF by that 
weird arraignment. 

The crowd was silent no longer. Cheer 
upon cheer, shout upon shout, a perfect whirl 
of ecstatic acclaim told Colonel Phillips that 
he had lost the day — even as on a later day, 
he lost the election to Congress. 



74 



THE PEOPLE'S PAETY. 



X. 

The People's Party. 

Eemembering the great beginnings of 
Kansas — how there had foregathered on her 
freedom-consecrated soil, men sublimely pur- 
posed to live or die for justice, it was surely 
befitting that the 'Teople's Party" should 
have its genesis in that state. 

Victor Hugo said of the Battle of Water- 
loo, ^'It was not a battle, it was a great change 
of front of the universe." 

Likewise, this People's Party was not, 
viewed as to its significant portent and its ul- 
timate destiny, a mere political party. It 
was a movement vrhich projected a new prin- 
ciple into the policies of the nation. 

77 



THE STORY OF 

The People's Party declared for govern- 
ment o^vnersliip of railways and telegraphs. 
This brought forward the fundamental doc- 
trine of public 0T\Tiership of public utilities. 

The widespread discussion on this line 
brought out the ethics as w^ell as the econo- 
mics of collective ownership. 

The elimination of private profit from 
public service was urged as a corrective of 
legislation corruption and of personal demor- 
alization. 

Temptation to unwholesome accumula- 
tion lurks in the strong box of profits. 

With profits deflected from the private 
purse to the public use, the tricks of the 
tempter and the tempted would pass into ob- 
solescence and private and public morals 
would rise from the dust of the old regime. 

Public OAvnership was further urged as 
a means whereby the manual laborer, en- 

78 



JERRY SIMPSON. 

gaged in the operation of enterprises of great 
magnitude, might secure the national guaran- 
tee of shortened toil and adequate remuner- 
ation. 

For the first time in the life of the 
great Republic there was a political organiza- 
tion which grappled directly and fundamen- 
tally with the gross injustice which marked 
the dealings between Exploiters and the Ex- 
ploited in the realm of industrialism. It 
marked the beginning of an entire change of 
front of things Governmental in relation to 
to the Server and the Served. 

All this is true to history, despite the 
fact, that the written platforms of the Peoples 
Party made but partial statement of the 
basic theory. Nor does it change the great 
fact because a multitude of men inside the 
party ranks were unillumined as to the scope 
of its mission. Nor yet does it count against 

79 



THE STORY OF 

the truth, to note that the mere party died; 
that it accomplished little directly in legis- 
lation, and that the ^vhole stirring drama has 
passed into reminisence. 

It is withal true, that in 1890, in Kan- 
sas, there was articulated, in political party 
vernacular, the cry of the human, seeking 
relief from ages-old burdens. Dumb drudg- 
ery was climbing painfully from its abyss. 

To the low browed artizan of stuntc3d 
life, to 

"The motherless girl, whose fingers thin, 
Push from her faintly, want and sin" 
— to such as these, the new party called out : 
'^I am coming to the rescue : the great relief 
march is begun. Someday, somehow, such 
as ye are shall no more make moan, in this 
fair, sweet world, so overfull of God's rich, 
bounteous stores. 

Jerry Simpson, gifted by nature with 

80 



JEKEY SIMPSON. 

sympatliy and imegination, mentally enriched 
by a wide range of reading, spiritually il- 
lumined by the religious fervor of Henrx 
George's gospel, and made thrice tenderwiso 
toward all sorrow — toward all suffering — by 
the great grief that had crushed into his life, 
was to the front among those who knew the 
full freighted meaning and the inexorable 
purpose of the new party. He knew that 
despite its stammerings, its half uttered 
truths, its timid baitings in the face of ven- 
ture and its blemishes of personnel, it was 
still the progenitor of a new order and a new 
time when equity and righteousness among 
all people would prevail. In his speech at 
the inauguration of Governor Lewelling, he 
snid: ''Today we are witnessing the install- 
ation of the first People's Governor on earth." 
The first defiant move of the political 
revolution of 1890, was made at Hill City, 

81 



THE STOEY OF 

Kansas. There the Alliance took the bit in 
its teeth, locked the lodge doors against nn- 
sanctified outsiders, took up the pass word 
from the brethren and proceeded to nominate 
William Baker, one of their very own, a 
tiller of the soil, a non politician, for their 
representative to Congress. 

Oh, what a howl was there, my country- 
men! The constitution and all other things 
patriotic and polite had been flouted. Poli- 
ticians and other unthinking folk were scan- 
dalized — even livid with rage. But you see, 
the Alliance men were in battle array for 
fair play in legislation, they were intent up- 
on safe-guarding themselves against the se- 
ductive eloquence, the parliamentary tactics 
and the oiled maneuvers of the wily politi- 
cians who had theretofore dominated, flatter- 
ed and — betrayed them. Moreover, there 
were the Alliance women, also in holy 

82 



JEEEY SIMPSON. 

earnest. They saw straight through the 
■economic issues to their effects upon their 
hearthsides and their younglings. The white 
hot zeal of those electric days was fed to ful- 
ness by the wives, mothers and daughters of 
the voters. It was the women who cooked 
the picnic good things, who sang the Alliance 
songs, marched in the parades and never 
once played Lot's wife on the party question. 

The constitution was not again assaulted 
by an Alliance nomination. The state was 
rapidly organized with due regard to party 
law and order. County, congressional and 
state tickets, were named and the fight was 
on. And what a fight it was. ISTo time, 
away from armed and bloody conflict, had 
ever seen its like. 

Throughout that historic summer and 
fall of 1890, the great mass meetings of the 
party were held in ''God's first temples." 

83 



THE STOEY OF 

The solemn prayers, the fervid exhortations 
full of stories of the distressed, the homeless 
and the helpless every^vhere, made the major- 
ity of the meetings more like religious re- 
vivals than like unto any ever before known 
in the realm of politics. 

Emerson was being verified : "Every 
reform is at heart religious." 

The opponents of the Peoples Party 
strove to brand it as unpatriotic — yea, even 
aw an abettor and hatchery of treason. A 
pretext was found in the official roster of the 
National Farmers Alliance, whose president 
was Colonel L. L. Polk, of I^orth Carolina. 

Colonel Polk came to Kansas at the 
behest of the State Alliance. He was gentle, 
humane and full of love toward his fellow 
men, but, being Southern born and bred, he 
had been an officer in the Confederate Army. 
Well, the spasms of rage that distorted cer- 

84 



JEEEY SIMPSO]^. 

tain patriots, were painful to look upon. 
You really would not have thought that patri- 
otism could act that way upon the human 
system. Still, when you stop to think, some 
answer to the arguments of the new party 
had to he made, so, in lieu of relevancy, the 
cry, '^rebellion redivivus,'' was perhaps about 
the best that could be done. 

Jerry Simpson talked back at this treas- 
on charge, after this fashion. ^'You Repub- 
lican fellows are mightily afraid of the ghosts 
of Eebel Brigadiers, you ought to get over it. 
Brace up, the war is over. The flag's a-wav- 
ing do^vn South. My gentle sirs, put on your 
goggles and watch the buccaneers of Wall 
Street; the brigands of the tariff; and the 
whole shootin' match of grain gamblers, land 
grabbers, and Government sneak thieves, be- 
fore they steal you blind. Fire away at 
them and don't get nightmares over Rebel 

85 



THE STORY OF 

Brigadiers." 

The first platform of the Peoples Party 
had a declaration favoring the pensioning of 
all honorably discharged soldiers. One time, 
a debate was arranged, with two Republican 
lawyers on one side, and a Peoples Party 
woman, on the other. Courtesy prevailed; 
but one of the legal gentlemen ])lended with 
his personal compliments, a note of sorrow- 
that the most estimable lady, his opponent, 
herself, no doubt, a patriot, should be so woe- 
fully misled — so dangerously hypnotize'! 
into rank treason by ''Brigadier General'' 
Polk. In ponderous proof, thereof, he read 
from the Peoples Party platform, the declara- 
tion anent the pensioning of all honorably 
discharged soldiers. With waring forefinger 
and all but trickling tears, he besought the 
lady to notice the absence of the word 
"union" which should have been prefixed to 

86 



JEEKY SIMPSOIT. 

^'soldier." So, there it stood, in all its 
naked treason — the black design of Eebel- 
dom, whose dupes and tools, we Kansans 
were. The Southern purpose, plainly being, 
to pension their confederate soldiers. And 
then, the speaker sat him down, as if o'er- 
come by the deadly peril to his country. 

The hall was densely packed, a crowd 
stood outside the open windows, and from 
thence a ''hayseed" voice piped out: "Oh, 
come off! Don't you know them there John- 
ny Rebs aint honorably discharged soldiers, 
they're prisoners on parole. Any fool might 
'a kno^^Ti that." 

When the cheers subsided, the lady 
speaker laughingly recited a list, well nigh a 
dozen long, of truly Rebel Brigadiers who 
long had been perched high in national Re- 
publican office and tow^ard whom her alarmed 
and tearful monitor had doubtless never cast 

87 



THE STOEY OF 

one glance of terror in all the years of their 

most honored incumbency. 

A little book, ^'Seven Financial Conspir- 
acies," figured as a favorite reference in the 

Peoples Party. It was the target of much 
scornful. Republican speech — '^all silly 
tales,' ' they said. \Vhereat, the Peoples 
Party man would strike an attitude and 
orate lustily, quoting Republican Senator 
Plumb : "Wall Street and the United States 
Treasury are in partnership and these con- 
spiracies will breed revolution." 

Republicans frequently taunted the new 
party men with base ingratitude in leaving 
the grand old party of ''Protection." Where- 
at the taunted ones would jauntily toss back 
a quotation from Republican Senator Ingalls : 
''The. tariff is of no more consequence than 
a fly on a cart wheel ; it is an instrument for 
tomfoolery and juggling." 

88 



JEKEY SIMPSON. 

Oh, they were posted, those hayseeds 
and clodhoppers of 1890, and when Repuhli- 
cans attacked them 

"They mocked 'em and they shocked 'em 
An' they said they didn't care." 

But in their heart of hearts, they did 
care. It was no light thing to break the 
party ties of a lifetime. There were old 
Republicans whose faces sometimes took on 
the pallor of the coffin time as they sang, 
'-'Good-by Old Party, Good-by." And by that 
token you may know how strong was their 
belief in the principles and purposes of the 
new party. 

The strangest thing of all, was the mis- 
understanding of hosts of good men and 
women who, had their hour of awakening 
but arrived, would have been with the move- 
ment, heart and hand. Ten years or so later, 
when many, very many, of these same people 

89 



THE STORY OF 

became alarmed by the devastations of com- 
mercial combinations, incensed by corrupt 
officialdom, and outraged by flagrant favorit- 
ism in legislation, they courageously took up 
the task of working out the problems and 
carrying on the work so startlingly begun in 
1890. 

It was the quickened fraternalism, the 
perfervid fellowship with all the hosts of 
back-bent men whose lives were filled from 
birth to death with ill requited toil; it was 
the tender sympathy with overburdened 
womanhood, with defrauded childhood; in 
short, it was the keen, biting sense of the 
injustice of it all, that made the new party 
invincible and prolonged its career until it 
had innoculated the older parties, and the 
whole nation had risen to a higher level of 
understanding of wrongs which press upon 
humanity and of evil ways which menace 



JEEKY SIMPSON. 



national integrity. 

Greatly blessed were the men and 
women of that epoch in American history, 
who, through propinquity or prescience, were 
privileged to be in and of the Peoples Party. 



91 



THE PERSOlS^Is^EL OF THE PEO- 
PLE'S PARTY. 



XI. 



The Personnel of the People's Party. 

The personnel of the Peoples Party 
typified the entire social state. 

It ranged all the way from the un- 
lettered toilers, whose lives of deprivation 
had stranded them in illiteracy, poverty of 
speech and uncouth manors, on to the very 
flower of American culture, intellectual 
greatness, refinement and social standing. 

Henry D. Lloyd, Hamlin Garland, B. 
O. Flower, Eev. D. P. Bliss, Professor 
Frank Parsons and Ignatius Donnelly were 
among the pioneer propagandists. 

95 



THE STORY OF 

In Kansas, among lawyers who were 
with the party from the first, were Judge 
Frank Doster Rnd G. C. Clemens, whom bnt 
to name is to announce superiority. 

Among the scores of newspaper men, 
whose writings served to mold and unify the 
new party sentiment. There were the Vincent 
Brothers — reformers, blood and bone. There 
was John Davis, with many years of solid 
service. There was Dr. McLallin, clear 
brained and dependable as the polar-star. 

Dr. McLallin's paper, the Advocate, was 
first the official organ of the Alliance and 
later the official paper of the Peoples Party. 
In those turbulent, uncertain days, when the 
daily press purveyed the wildest rumors, the 
bitterest personalities and reports afar from 
facts; the new party folk would read, shake 
their heads in doubt or derision, and remark : 
'^ We'll wait until the Advocate comes, then 

96 



JERRY SIMPSOIT. 

we'll know the straight truth about it all." 

Very many of the early speakers rose 
through fervor, sincerity and clear statement 
to great speech — at times, to eloquence; but 
transcending all in oratorical power there 
was Mary Elizabeth Lease. 

Ah, how the fingers of the writer of this 
stor^^, throb with desire, which must be 
denied, to write herein honored names, num- 
bering into thousands, of great souled Kan- 
sas men and women, personally esteemed and 
affectionately remembered, who were enlisted 
in the great Crusade of 1890. 

Upon the farms and in the ranks of 
labor, were mcii and ^vomen of fine education 
and choice culture. And among those less 
fortunate, it must not be inferred, that the 
superficial thing which is named, illiteracy, 
necessarily betokens ignorance or coarseness 
of character. Incorrect speech, even small 

97 



THE STORY OF 

acquaintance with books, tells no sure storv, 
save one of lack of schooling or untoward 
circumstance. 

Nothing short of taking a club and beat- 
ing Jerry Simpson into insensibility and 
ii:to a change of individuality conld ever have 
taught him how to spell or to refrnin from 
wholly unprecedented pronunciation of cer- 
tain words. Read in' and 'rithmetic were 
his, but spellin' and writin' were alien and 
hostile. And yet he reveled in the choicest 
literature. Stevenson enthralled him, Kip- 
ling delighted him Tenuvr^on enraptured him 
Emerson inspired him, Dickens was his very 
own. History, Philosophy, and Social Sci- 
ence were included in his wide range of 
reading. And still, it is doubtless true, as 
was charged by a political foe, that he some- 
times misspelled the name of the town in 
which he lived. Jerry smilingly drawled 

98 



JEKEY SIMPSON. 

out in reply to this taunt : "Well, maybe I 
don't always spell the name of that town just 
right, but I wouldn't give a cent for a man 
who couldn't spell a word more than one 
way." 

The common sense, the good judgment, 
the first hand knowledge, born of observation 
or experience, diffused among the rank and 
file of this phalanx of the nation's useful 
citizens challenge comparison with any pro- 
ceeding political party. 

The party issues were no mere hear-say 
stories, no matters of indirect concern. The 
things complained of, wefe things they had 
experienced. The remedies they asked for 
had been considered day by day, and year by 
year. 

All of this is to the good. ISTow, what 
should history say as to the personal unworth, 

99 



THE STORY OF 

self-seeking, or base design in the new party ? 
Merely this ; that it was of small percentage, 
existent as a negligible quantity at the out- 
set, but perchance, as has ever been the way 
of parties, augmented as victory and success 
attracted and tempted the vanity or cupidity 
of human nature. 



100 



SOGKLESS SOCKATES x\ND PRmCE 

HAL. 



XII. 

SocTcless Socrates and Prince Hoi. 

Here he stands, the Sockless Socrates of 
1890, before a vast crowd of fellow citizens. 
Many of them are applauding wildly; some 
are silent, sullen and hostile. The faces of 
the approving ones are luminous — alive with 
joy. Most of the applauders have been pas- 
sion-swept by worship of political idols in 
former days, but this time it is different; 
their other great men were a trifle aloof — 
just enough aloof to make it very blissful to 
be numbered among their marching torch 
bearers and to be spoken to by the great one 
'^just as common-like as if he were one of 
us." But this time, as to Jerry — well he 
is their very o\\ti, they are thrilled 

103 



THE STORY OF 

by a sense of kinship, they feel it in 
the marrow of their bones. The kin- 
ship is closer than that of craft or 
vocation; it is born of sincerest champion- 
ship. Jerry Simpson is the voice of their 
needs, their burdens, their longings, their 
hopes, their aspirations, and on him they rest 
in perfect fullness of belief: He bespeaks 
a better dav : He heralds a new era of an all 
embracing fraternity. There is no quiver 
of doubt in his tone for he too believes 
through all the innermost reaches of his be- 
ing. 

Notice as he comes to the platform front 
his slightly lurching gait, reminescent of 
sailor days, his muscular build, his broad 
shoulders, his lithe, supple frame. He is an 
athlete. His face is a blend of rugged 
strength and keen intelligence. His clear, 
bro^Ti eyes look men and measures squarely 

104 



.TERKY SIMPSO:Nr. 

in the face. There is no flutter of self- 
consciousness nor any self-assertion in his 
manner. jSTo man ever faced crowds of his 
fellow men with more serene, unshakable 
confidence in the eternal verity of the mes- 
sage he bore. 

But there is something besides sym- 
pathy, something other than exhaltation of 
spirit that Jerry's audiences expect: they 
expect to be entertained — to be wrenched by 
aching laughter. And so the applause is 
prolonged, it rises to a roar, it breaks into a 
laugh before a word is said. And then the 
earnest, half -sad face that Jerry brought to 
the front begins to glow as if from some 
warm light back of the features, the brown 
eyes twinkle mischievously, he responds to 
the call — he is himself amused. His firm 
mouth widens into a straight line across his 
face and, well, it must be said, he is grinning. 

105 



THE STORY OF 

Truly "grin" is not a dignified word but 
there is none other nearer to veracions des- 
cription. If ever there was another man 
who could grin and not look weak or silly the 
writer of this story never heard of him. 
'i'his grin was purely a Jerryesqne achieve- 
ment. It was the most mirth provoking 
facial expression ever presented to a helpless 
audience. It did not suggest buffoonery nor 
hint of the harlequin. You saw before you 
just a big, good natured boy and you laughed, 
not at, but with him. And right then was 
the moment for the sullen ones to reinforce 
their disapproval, to rebarricade their hostile 
grounds lest they be drawn within the in- 
fluence of this strange, irresistable man. Lest 
they listen with minds too open to the swiftly 
flashing changes of the Sockless Socrates as 
he passes from comedy to argument; to con- 
cise statement of facts; to pathetic story of 

106 



JEEEY SIMPSOI^. 

huirian misery; to appeal to love of country; 
to prophecy of better days when God's 
abounding stores shall be justly apportioned 
to all gladsome workers. 

The Sockless Socrates kncAv that tlie 
first part of the great task set for those whose 
political creeds were like his own was to clear 
the way; to expose misdeeds and to arraign 
misdoers. So he accuses, assails, batters 
and ridicules without stint and apparently 
without mercy. Yet ever there is back of his 
stinging sarcasm, back of his flashing furj 
a personal note of gentleness as if above all 
he felt the great pity of it and as if he held 
an abiding conviction that there was more of 
good than of evil even among those whom he 
arraigned. 

In his first campaign for Congress Jer- 
ry had for his opponent Colonel James R. 
Hallo well, one time United States Attorney 

107 



THE STORY OF 

and a distingiiislied corporation lawyer. Col. 
Hallowell was college bred, a polished orator, 
a high social favorite and a most fastidious 
dresser. His extreme personal aloofness and 
iinlikeness to the great majority of the rural 
constituents he sought to represent in Con- 
gress gave Jerry much leverage among the 
voters he addressed. The Republican press 
teemed with reckless characterization of 
Jerry as a cIo^^ti, an ignoramus, a boor and a 
rag-a-muffin. Jerry retorted by nicknaming 
his opponent 'Trince HalL'' ^'This prince 
of royal blood," said Jerry, ''travels in his 
special car, his dainty person is gorgeously 
bedizened, his soft white hands are pretty 
things to look at, his tender feet are encased 
in fine silk hosiery, what does he know of 
the life and the toil of such plow-handlers 
as we are ? I can't represent you in Con- 
gress with silk stockings — I can't afford to 

108 



JEEEY SIMPSOK 



wear 'em.'' 



Straightway from the fertile pen of 
Victor Murdock, then a youthful reporter, 
now Jerry Simpson's successor in Congress, 
the story flew and the title ^'Sockless Jerry" 
grew. Later, William Allen White elimin- 
ated "Jerry" and substituted "Socrates." 
Jerry joined in the fun and jollity which 
the campaign croAvds got out of it, although 
in later days the "sockless" story became irk- 
some because of the many coarse and un- 
warranted variations it underwent. 

Those were days of parades, miles upon 
miles long. Those on Jerry's side far out- 
sized and out-classed the attempts of Prince 
Hal's friends. The fierv zeal of the friends 
of Sockless Socrates knew no bounds. Their 
banners, their bands, their tableaux sur- 
passed in number and originality anything 
before exhibited in spectacular campaigning. 

109 



THE STOEY OF 

Every political demand was emblazoned on 
their banners: ^'Down with Wall Street," 
^'^Give Us Eifty Dollars Per Capita/' '^Give 
the farmers as fair a chance as you give the 
bankers." Floats laden with girls knitting 
socks for Jerry were in the parades. During 
the campaign the ^^sockless" candidate was 
presented with more than three hundred pairs 
of socks. 

It appeared incredible to the entrenched 
Eepublicans of the Big 7th District that 
Jerry Simpson could win over their trained 
and resourceful candidate. 

Here is the story of Colonel HallowelFs 
experience with Jerry as told by Col- 
onel "Marsh" Murdock, one of the most 
influential Republican editors of that con- 
gressional district. : ''Our candidate was a 
crack stump speaker. He was "known all 
over Kansas as a crack orator. We thought 

110 



JEREY SIMPSO^^. 

that Jerry would not dare to face him on the 
platform, and we knew that if toe could get 
them together our man would luipe the floor 
witJi Jerry. . .So we challenged Jerry to joint 
debate. If he refused we ivere to have the 
laugh on him. If he accepted he was to he 
used up. He accepted and arrangements 
were made for a series of joint meetings. 
One meeting came off — only one. Our man 
never appeared at another. V\^hy luith the 
audiences that turned out ah those meetings 
our candidate ivasiit any match for Jerry at 
all.'' 

The ''Big Ttli" had been ''safely'' Ee- 
iDublican by 14,000 majority, but when the 
ISTovember votes were counted Prince Hal 
had lost by nearly 8,000 votes and the Sock- 
less Socrates had won his seat in Congress. 



Ill 



JEEEY ARRIVES AT WASHmGTOlSr. 



XIII. 

Jerry Arrives at Washiiigton. 

Enroute to Washington, December 1890, 
Jerrj Simpson, Congressman-elect, attended 
that great meeting of the i^ational Farmer's 
xA-lliance at Ocala, Florida. Unstinted and 
m.ost lavish entertainment was given by Flori- 
dians to the convention delegates. No 
beauty spot in all that land of flowers and 
orange groves was left imvisited. During 
all those gala days th;^t counted into w^eeks, 
at every festal board, ^Jt barbecue, in orange 
grove, a-sailing do^\T:i St. John's, at morning, 
noon or night time halting of the special 
trains, the waiting, welcoming people would 
call, ^'A speech, a speech from Jerry Simp- 
■^on." And every time our Jerry flashed a 

115 



THE STORY OF 

new, quaint, humorous, little gem of speech. 

Out on the waters of Pensecola Bay as 
guests of Senator Mallory, Jane and Jerry 
visited the Life Saving Station and there 
were greeted by the self same crew who res- 
cued Captain Simpson and his men from 
the sinking J. H. Rutter. How strangely 
human crafts do drift apart, then meet again 
upon the sea of life. 

At old St. Augustine Jerry was one of 
the guests entertained at the luxurious Ponce 
de Leon. With what perfect ease he 
ada2:)ted himself to those exquisite and ele- 
gant surroundings. As usual the call came 
from the citizens assembled in the parlors of 
the hotel for "a speech from Jerry." His 
response was a little model of tact and good 
taste, combining therewith a few serious, il- 
luminating sentences, anent the mission of 
the Peoples Party, which meant not to level 

116 



JERKY SIMPSON^. 

dovra but to upbuild and to create more and 
more of art and beauty in the world; and 
furthermore to give the artisan a chance to 
become an artist. Why said he, there's none 
of all this too good or fine for all of us. 
Then with a quick turn to whimsy he said, 
"I'm going back to Kansas to sell my last 
year's crop so I can come back and put up 
at this hotel for a day." 

As it was through Florida, so it was in 
'New York when Jerry went to speak to the 
Single Taxers at Cooper Union — everywhere 
he won his way to the approval and affection 
of those w^ho learned to know him. 

At the ISTational Capitol he had been 
pre-announced as a freak and a boor; yet at 
the first great public meeting where he spoke 
the not over friendly reporters were captiv- 
ated. Said one, "Jerry Simpson is a dia- 
mond in the rough, he will rival the more 

117 



THE STOKY OF 

polished Ingalls as a credit to Kansas." 

Upon the assembling of Congress Jerry 
was chosen by the little band of Peoples 
Party and Alliance men, hailing from Min- 
nesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Georgia, and other 
Sonthern states, as leader and spokesman for 
the reform party. Certain old party mem- 
bers started in to make sport of him and of 
the new party declarations. In each and 
every instance the would be tormentors re- 
tired from the fray with pain and surprise. 
Jerry's retorts were nearly always good 
natnred, uttered in quaint, drawling tones 
and embellished by his choicest grin. Upon 
rare occasions, however, he would administer 
a serious rebuke to levity aimed at Peoples 
Party principles. 

Shortly after Jerry took his seat in Con- 
gress, an unwitting Pepublican Member 
sneeringly said: ''Xow give us something 

118 



JERRY SIMPS0:NT. 

about your people burning corn." ''Yes," 
replied Jerry, "tbey did burn corn, and by 
tlie light of tliat burning corn they read the 
history of the Republican Party. That is 
why the Peoples Party carried the state." 
"No Member of the House ever committed 
the error of twice attacking Jerry expecting 
him to fall an easy prey. 

One day a rash young correspondent of 
an eastern newspaper approaclied Jerry with 
an air of now-see-me-poke-fun at this Sock- 
less fellow, and said, ''What do you think of 
the McKinley bill?" Jerry drew the grin 
across his face, his eyes shot mischief through 
his spectacles as he answered, "I am going 
to look that little m.atter up, and if I find the 
bill correct I shall vote that it be paid." 

During this his first term in Congress 
Jerry Simpson was a tireless student and a 
matchless champion of his political prin- 

119 



THE STORY OF 



ciples. From the floor of the national House 
of Representatives he spoke to the whole 
nation. Thus was the high destiny for 
which all his years had fitted him heing ful- 
filled. 



120 



SEKATOK LO^^G XNT> JERRY 
SIMPSOK. 



XIV. 

Senator Long and Jerry Simpson. 

Throngh four deeply significant and 
hotly contested congressional campaigns 
Chester I. Long of Medicine Lodge, and 
Jerry Simpson were pitted against each 
other. Jerry was twic« victorious and twice 
the victory went to Mr. Long who later be- 
came United States Senator. 

The early fervor and zeal of Jerry's 
constituents continued and their admiration 
and pride in him increased. The full story 
of those four campaigns given in all their 
picturesque details would make a volume. 

123 



THE STORY OF 

No event of its kind in Kansas ever sur- 
passed in intensity of interest and superheat- 
ed feelings the series of debates between these 
tvo Kansans. 

Mr, David Leahey reporting these con- 
tests said: '^Jerry's fight in those debates 
was unorganized : Chester's fight was organ- 
ized. When Mr. Long would leave the 
hall he v^ould go to his room and lie down 
and with loyal, intelligent friends would 
pick flaws in Jerry's arg-uments in hopes of 
being able to riddle them at the next meet- 
ing. Jerry, on the contrary, after leaving 
the hall, would sit do^Mi on a curb stone and 
talk to the crowd of Populist admirers as 
unconcernedly as if he had nothing to do 
with the debates that had everybody's blood 
at boiling point. He depended altogether 
upon the knowledge he had been picking up 
during a life time — knowledge he had stored 

124 



JERRY SIMPSON. 

away in his remarkable memory — and upon 
his sharp wit and barbed and pointed sar- 
casm. He was a master in the art of illus- 
trating his points with a story, an art in 
which Mr. Long was deficient." 

On one never to be forgotten occasion 
the crowd had assembled ahead of time for 
the debate in such vast numbers that not only 
was the auditorium densely packed but all 
the avenues of approach to the building were 
blocked l^eyond the possibility of effecting 
an entrance. Mr. Long had earlier made his 
way inside, but Jerry with all the aid of the 
authorities found the path to the front en- 
trance impenetrable. High up in the rear 
of the building was a small window, a ladder 
was brought, Jerry mounted and quickly ap- 
peared at the small aperture facing the 
amazed and waiting inside crowd. His face 
framed as if in a picture on the wall took an 

125 



THE STOEY OF 

his classic grin — the effect was indescribable. 
Delirium swept the crowd as Jerry bodily 
effected his entrance in the only possible way. 
Friend and foe alike enjoyed the spectacle, 
and to this day men tell and laugh with gusto 
of the great meeting where Jerry got there 
in that novel fashion. 

About this time it came to be widely 
noticed that Jerry had a gift so unique that 
men often pondered on its source and qual- 
ity. He could without apparent effort or 
purpose of effect put into his utterance of a 
single word a fulness of characterization that 
carried a whole vocabulary of description — a 
whole gamut of subtle accusation. Psychol- 
ogy, perchance, could penetrate the mystery 
of this power, but plain observation left it 
as unexplained as it was extraordinary. 

'Now Chester I. Long possessed unusual 
symmetry of feature as well as a fine bearing 

126 



THE STOEY OF 

and physique. In one hilarious outburst 
Jerry was making free with his o^ti lack of 
personal graces. Pausing a moment he said, 
''jSTow, there is — Chester." Well, he put 
into that one word ''Chester" at least a dozen 
insinuations — ranging all the way from re- 
prehensible to criminal. You felt that of 
all arraignments that ever curdled your emo- 
tions that contained in the word ''Chester" 
was surely one you would best like to dodge. 
And the more it penetrated the more ludi- 
crous it became. It was intangible. There 
was nothing to deny — there could be no de- 
fense. But there lingered an uncanny feel- 
ing that the lamentable sin and shame of 
"Chester" was his good looks. 

It was the persuasive personality of Jer- 
ry Simpson, aside from the subject matter 
of his speeches, that produced the powerful 
effect upon his audiences. It is impossible 

127 



THE STOKY OF 

to reproduce in story or to retell by quotation 
of his very words, the humor, the pathos or 
the prophecy that inhered in the utterance of 
this remarkable man. 

Governor Hoch said of him, ^'On the 
stump he was almost irresistible, he could 
come nearer to making Avhat many of us be- 
lieved to be error appear to be truth than any 
one in recent history.'' 

It is not improbable that the Scottish 
strain in Jerry Simpson's blood gave him his 
occult power. Certain it is that there was 
much of the mystic in his makeup. 

There was somewhat in his life known 
only to his wife, his brother James, and one 
or two most intimate earlv friends. Poor 
little "Jane" in the early years of her life 
with Jerry could not understand why there 
came upon her husband, hours and 
sometimes days of Silence — of far- 

128 



J 



JERKY SIMPSON. 

awayness — when tliere was for him 
no reading, few words, not even the 
c-ornigated brow of thouglit, but only 
the rapt air of one enthralled by a great 
stillness. These seasons of silence came less 
frequently in his later years bnt there grew 
within him more and more of the Emerson- 
ian calmness and perfect trust in the benefi- 
cent universe. The desire to discuss re- 
ligious creeds, a one time passion with him, 
ceased. The peace which passeth power, or 
wish to be put into words came to him in 
rich plentitude. 

And yet this story to be rounded out 
must tell of the militant, the virile side of this 
very human, very modern '^Sockless So- 
crates." He Avas no plaster saint. He 
could, on occasion, fight — with his fists. The 
hearty work he could do in that line would 
have delighted the boxer-loving Conan Doyte. 

129 



THE STORY OF 

Mr. Tom Mcl^eal tells this story: "Jer- 
ry was possessed of a great deal of physical 
as well as moral courage and during his ex- 
periences on the Great Lakes he had learned 
to handle himself well. On one occasion 
a somewhat heated street corner discussion 
took place between him and a Medicine 
Lodge blacksmith by the name of Corson, 
Corson claimed that Simpson had insulted 
him and that he intended to whip him. He 
found Jerry standing in the corner livery 
stable with his overcoat on and with a pre- 
liminary word or so struck the future Con- 
gressman in the face. In a minute Corson 
was down and out, a badly whipped man. 
The next year Corson was one of Jerry's 
most devoted and enthusiastic followers,"' 

In evidence of the non pious language 
that Jerry sometimes used, Mr. McE'eal tells 
of at one time expressing his surprise at some 

130 



JERKY SIMPSOK. 

of Jerry's views: ''Well/' said Jerry, dry- 
ly, "I presume I believe a damned sight of 
things that wonld surprise yon." 



iin 



JERRY IX C0:N^GRESS. 



XY. 

Jerry in Congress, 

You are a visitor at Washington. You 
enter the visitors gallery of the House of 
Representatives. The guide exclaims, ''You 
are in luck, Jerry Simpson, of Kansas, has 
the floor.'' You cannot have come from so 
remote a spot in all the land that you have 
not heard of Jerry. You may not know, 
though the guide does, that the House is 
usually a babel. You can count on the 
fingers of one hand the Members who can 
command attention. 

You see a modeishly clad man, just 
slightly stooped since the rollicking days 
of the last tournament with Prince Hal. 
The black hair shows here and there a line 
of gray. He is not gesticulating, his voice 

136 



THE STORY OF 

is clear. At rare intervals there is a mis- 
pronounciation that is more an oddity than 
an error; more rarely still there is a lapse 
in grammar — you ]:)arely notice these. The 
qniet sincerity, the entire genuineness of the 
man, hold your thought above trivalties. If 
you were directly facing him you would see 
that the strong, thoughtful face is sad a? if 
the sorrows of helpless humanity called to 
him for relief. And if you knew him well 
you would know^ that, just as the great sor 
rows of his times pressed sorely upon tlie 
tender heart of Abraham Lincoln even 
when his jests and jokes were readiest, so 
too is Jerry Simpson ever sore of heart be- 
cause of his great pity for the cruel buffet- 
ing of his fellow men. True, he does not 
make his abiding sympathy the subject of 
frequent talk, but it is seldom absent from 
his waking hours. And if you knew him 

136 



JEKRY SIMPSON. 

^^ell you would also know that he is as fine 
of fibre as he is fearless of speech. He re- 
sponds to poetry as flowers respond to sun- 
light. Just now he is speaking to the ques- 
tion of the admission of New Mexico to the 
Union. He has tersely stated the facts, he 
has made a fine appeal to the Democrats 
and to the Republicans of the House to put 
aside party considerations, and now he is 
passing to a not infrequent mood of raph- 
sody and swift torrential speech. He is not 
magnetic — he is .electric. He is saying: 

"Ages and ages ago there was a tropical 
climate in the northern regions and man, 
along with animals that only live and 
thrive in the temperature and tropical cli- 
mate, lived and inhabited that part of the 
earth. But there came a change. Suddenly 
down from the northern regions came the 
biting bLasts of xYrctic winter, and the very 
air was frozen into ice. Glaciers formed 

137 



THE STORY OF 

and moved over the earth to the south. Be- 
fore this irresistible force man was driven 
to leave his home and haunts, to find new 
opportunities to supply his wants. From 
central and western Europe, Scotland, 
Scandanavia, Switzerland and France men 
w^ere driven forth to seek new habitations. 
But though the heat of the sun has long 
since melted the ice, and the grass is green 
and the harvests ripened where once was 
nothing but eternal winter, there is yet a 
powerful force that is ever pushing the hu- 
man race onward to find new and unoccu- 
pied countries, not, however, on the same 
lines, but along the temperate zone from 
east to west, they are being driven by an- 
other resistless power. 

Since prehistoric times populations 
have moved steadily westward, as De- 
Tocqueville said, ^^as if driven by the hand 
of God.'' It was customary in times gone 
by to lay all the blame on God for the mis- 

138 



JEREY SIMPSON. 

fortune of man; but a higher civilization 
has taught us that nearly all the ills man 
suffers are attributable to his own ignor- 
ance of the laws of God. 

This force, that makes him, like the 
^'Wandering Jew," ever to be condemned 
to move onward, is generated by himself. It 
ifc the outgrowth of a bad system of land 
tenure, which allows one human being to 
hold portions of the earth out of use and 
deny his fellow-man access to the great 
storehouses of wealth. 

Land monopoly, that has resulted in the 
depriving of man of the right to live upon 
land, has had the effect to push him from 
one end of the globe to the other, and in his 
flight he has been pushed forward with a 
steady and resistless force, even as the gla- 
ciers pushed him from north to south, and 
his course has been marked by changes upon 
the earth's surface almost as great as that 
marked by the course of the mountains of 

139 



TPIE STORY OF 



ice. 

From India, Persia, Greece, Italy, Ger- 
many, France, Spain, Great Britain, and 
then to the great West, on from Plymouth 
Rock and Jamestown to the Golden Gate, 
like the star in the east which guided the 
three kings with their treasures westward 
until at length it stood still over the cradle 
of the young Christ so the star of empire, 
rising in the East, has ever moved onward, 
until it has at last rested over what, to my 
mind, is the treasure-house of the world. 

Men have built cities, railroads, canals, 
magnificient palaces, yet they find themselves 
homeless and in a condition to perish, amidst 
plenty and abundance. They starve within 
the shadow of the storehouses bursting w^th 
plenty. 

The opeu road to safety, lies through 
immigration to those new Territories where 
men can find unoccupied land, and let lis 
hope that thereon will be built the happy 



140 



JERKY SIMPSO:^. 

homes of millions of people; and let us also 
hope that, like the heat of the light of the 
snn that melted the frozen ice in the glaciers, 
the sunlight of reason and brotherly love 
will so soften and civilize man that he will 
not then deprive his fellow-man of the right 
to live upon the land. The earth belongs to 
the children of men and should be held for 
their use.'^ 

William el. Bryan, who was cotcmpor- 
ary in Congress with Jerry Simpson said, 
''Mr. Simpson clarified every subject he dis- 
cussed. His speeches contained a delight- 
ful commingling of logic and humor." 

Champ Clark, also a colleague, said, 
"He was one of the best rough and tumble 
debaters with whom I have served in my 
thirteen years in Congress. His wit, humor, 
sarcasm and wide knowledge of men rend- 
ered him a master in that difficult field of 

endeavor." 

141 



THE STOKY OF 

The Chicago Tribune editorially said, 
'^ Jerry Simpson was perfectly fearless, he 
had a ready, pungent wit and a gift for 
repartee which made him one of the most 
popular speakers and one of the most feared 
debaters in the House. He boldly crossed 
swords with Tom Keed himself who did not 
always come off from the contests with a 
whole skin." 

The House greatly enjoyed the bits of 
comment which Jerry could no more resist 
interjecting into the turgid speeches of most 
of the Members, than a frolicsome boy could 
resist flipping a pebble into a stagnant pool 
to make it ripple. 

Jerry was a free trader, and never let 
a chance slip by to puncture the tariff. 

A Member, arguing ponderously for the 
deepening of harbors, was solemnly asked by 
Jerry, "why money should be spent on bar- 

142 



JEEKY SIMPSON. 

bors to promote foreign trade, and a tariff 
wall be bnilt to obstruct tbe foreign trade? 
Why not let the foreigner flounder in the 
harbor V 

On one memorable occasion, Mr. Ding- 
lej was making an exhaustive and sentiment- 
al talk on the tariff as a protector of Ameri- 
can labor. Acting on the hint of a Eepubli- 
can Member who enjoyed a joke, Jerry 
strolled up the aisle and glanced into Mr. 
Dingley's silk hat that was deposited upon 
one of the House desks, it bore a London 
Trade Mark. Jerry with boyish candor 
asked leave to question Mr. Dingley. He 
consented and Jerry asked: '^Why, if it be 
a matter of morals to encourage the home 
manufacturer, do you buy your fine silk 
hats from England?" Mr. Dingley floun- 
dered and the Members roared while he ex- 
plained that his hat was really made in the 

143 



THE STORY OF 

United States, but that the London Trade 
Mark had been used to make it sell. AVhere- 
at Jerry said, ^^Oh, sir, is it moral to encour- 
age such deceitful men by buying our hats 
of them." The House was con^^llsed with 
laughter, and it was a long time before Mr. 
Dingley forgave Jerry — but he did — later. 
No one could hold out against the Kansan's 
good nature. 

On another uproarously funny occasion, 
Jerry was making merry with the tariff. 
'No black and white telling of the story can 
give the faintest hint of the drollery of man- 
ner and the bits of talk accompanying the 
performance : Jerry had bought a coat from 
a market gardener which he proceeded to tear 
to pieces with such lack of effort that 'twould 
seem as if the cloth just fell appart dis- 
heartened and shamed by the exposure of its 

shoddy quality : This was done to show that 

144 



JEKRY SIMPSON. 

shoddy had taken the place of wool in the 
manufacture of clothes fov the poor, protect- 
ed laborer. 

One day, Mr. Payne of New York, who 
had been driven close by one of Jerry's 
pointed questions said, ^'If I were inclined 
to be rude, Mr. Speaker, I would answer the 
foolish query of the gentleman from Kansas, 
by asking him if his ancestors were mon- 
keys." 

"In which event," said Jerry, calmly 
looking at Mr. Payne, "I should reply as did 
the elder I3umas, when a I^'rench fool asked 
him the same question. I should say to the 
gentleman. Yes, your family ends where 
mine began." 

Jerry once went to the Speaker, Mr. 

Reed, and urged the passage of a private 

pension bill which had come in from the 

Committee vrith an unfavorable report. "The 

145 



THE STORY OF 

bill affects the fortunes of a poor old widow 
down in Kansas/' said Jerry. "But, why,'' 
said Speaker Reed, "do you press this bill 
when you've been opposing pension bills un- 
favorably reported." "There are thirty reas- 
ons why I support this bill," said Jerry, "the 
first one is that the woman needs the money, 
— the other twenty-nine I have forgotten."" 
Speaker Reed recognized Jerry and the bill 
passed. 

W. D. Vincent, a populist Representa- 
tive from Kansas, tells this story of his col- 
league : 

"Jerry was attempting to make a speech 
on the Dingley tariff bill. The Chairman 
had tried to rap him down with his gavel, 
but Jerry would not yield the floor. The 
chairman ordered the sargeant at-arms to ar- 
rest him. The arrest of a Member of Con- 
gress is a very novel procedure. There are 

146 



JEREY SIMPSOISr. 

no papers served and no words uttered. The 
sargeant-at-arms simply marches up in front 
of the Member holding the mace in front of 
him. The mace is a symbol of authority. 
The one used by the House of Representa- 
tives is a large bronze in the form of a brass 
eagle, mounted on a staif. When this is 
held in front of a Member by the proper 
officer he is under arrest. Following the in- 
structions of the chairman, the sergeant-at- 
arms walked up to Jerry with his eagle. By 
this time the excitement was intense, but 
Jerry continued his speech, only stopping 
long enough to say to the officer, with a care- 
less wave of the hand: ^'Oh, take that buz- 
zard away from here." 

^ There was a deathlike stillness over the 
House. The chairman looked dumfounded, 
while the face of the sergeant-at-arms turned 

fourteen different colors as he gazed about 

147 



THE STORY OF 

the hall with a sort of vacant stare as if try- 
ing to decide whether it was a dream or the 
real thing. For a moment everybody seemed 
embarrassed but Simpson, who alone seemed 
to appreciate the ludricous situation, and, 
standing there with a smile on his face said 
to the officer : ''Well, what are you going to 
do about it ?" All at once the suspense was 
broken by a peal of laughter from the Mem- 
ber? that almost shook the capitol building. 
It had suddenly dawned on them that w« 
Avere in a committee of the whole and there 
was no rule under which a Member could be 
arrested in the committee. The sergeant-at- 
arms marched meekly and submissively back 
to his room and Jerry continued his speech 
until the Speaker rushed into the hall and 
with a rap of his gavel declared the House 
in session. In the meantime Jerry had said 
all he wanted to say and was ready to sub 

148 



JERRY SIMPSOiNT. 

side." 

No subject of importance came before 
Congress while Jerry was a Member upon 
which he failed to speak. The principles 
and purposes of the Peoples Party were ex- 
poimded over and over again. His experi- 
ence and practical knowledge as well as his 
reading and reflection equipped him for most 
efl^ective presentation and solid argument. 

Tom L. Johnson and Jerry were warm 
friends as well as co-disciples of Henry 
George. They connived to spread the gospel 
of Single Tax upon the pages of the Congres- 
sional Record. They portioned out the en- 
tire contents of ''Progress and Poverty" 
iunong the Single Tax Members to be used 
in quotation in their several speeches. The 
scheme was entirely legitimate and thus un- 
numbered readers were presented with that 
great work, and the archives of the nation 

149 



THE STORY OF 

carry it as a public document. 

One of the keenest writers on the staff 
of a great eastern daily said, ''There was not 
a question of Congressional action during 
Jerry Simpson's stay in Congress on which 
he did not think, and his speeches threw new 
light on every subject under discussion. The 
legislative accomplishments of Simpson con- 
sisted, during the six years in the House, in 
turning eastern sentiment regarding Popul- 
ism from scornful ridicule to respectful con- 
sideration." 

So, if it be asked in skepticism, why 
write up the "Sockless Socrates" as a states- 
man when no large legislation stands to his 
credit, let the answer be this : Laws are the 
creation of majorities in legislative bodies. 
^o one man, nor yet a little band of such as 
were Jerry's political compatriots may do the 
impossible. Politicians follow public senti- 

150 



JEERY SIMPSON. 

ment; statesmen create it. Far greater — 
far more enduring than mere acts of legisla- 
tion is the work of creating public sentiment, 
of informing and enlightening the popular 
mind. The shedding of light on unfamiliar 
and higher paths than those hard trodden by 
dull conservatism and tragic ignorance — 
these great things Jerry did, and when the 
years of fine fruition come, as come they will, 
let men who can grasp fine meanings, high 
purpose and real achievment say, Jerry 
Simpson's name belongs not with the poli- 
ticians' but with the statesman's class. 



151 



POPULISM ENROUTE. 
A. D. 1908. 



XVI. 

"^Populism Enroute. 
A. D. 1908. 

The full storj of civilization is not to 
be told by the mere data and description of 
events. Analysis of the quickening, throb- 
bing, pulsing ideas of the day or age must 
go into the rounded history. 

Great sentient waves of thought flow 
through humanity and gradually make vast 
changes in the manners, the morals, the art, 
the science, the trade, the vocations and the 
structural habitations of mankind. 

ISTo on-sweeping march of armored hosts, 

with all their hoarse shoutings, their blare 

and blazonry and their thundrous tread, ever 

*The official name of the Peoples Party was never 
changed, but through popular usage it came to be 
called the Populist Party. 

155 



THE STORY OF 

wrouglit upon God's footstool, changes that 
could compare with those wrought by the 
subtle, percolating, permeating power of 
ideas. 

Against the objective existence of the 
Peoples Party, the machinations of adroit, 
expert, and long entrenched old-partyism pre- 
vailed. But not all the cunning ways of 
high-handed and commercial politics playing 
upon the unawakened, the uninformed and 
the unalarmed hosts of American voters could 
barricade against the on-sweep of Populist 
ideas. So here are we today in the early 
years of the good twentieth century witness- 
ing the vindication, and enroute to the full 
fruition, of the Populism of 1890. 

The fundamental doctrine of Populism, 
was public o^vnership and public conduct of 
public utilities. Behold now the vast extent 
of popular acceptance of that theory. Be- 

166 



JEEKY SIMPSOK 

hold the tortuous clutchings of private owner- 
ship seeking to avert its certain doom. 

Decades hence some museum of things 
archaic will hold a street car, with aisles and 
platforms densely packed with w^eary men 
and w^omen. Then some student lad v.'ill 
say, ''Daddy, why did they crowd so ?" And 
daddy will reply, ''Well, son, once upon a 
time, private parties owned the street cars 
and furnished straps, instead of seats, for 
passengers." 

In 1890, Henry D. Lloyd, gave in 
"Wealth Against the Commonwealth" the 
story of Standard Oil rapacity. Populism 
called that huge trust an "Octopus." Turn • 
on the phonograph of memory and listen to 
the shouts of derision over Populist use of 
that word "octopus." Listen also to the elo- 
quent defense of "Standard Oil," — rebates 
and all. 

157 



THE STORY OF 

A few years later and public sentiment 
honeycombed by Populist ideas was ripened 
to tbe point of safe venture for a popular 
periodical to publish Ida TarbelPs story of 
Standard Oil and its black deeds. 

Read, years later, in the Kansas City 
Star, arraignment of Standard Oil under the 
bold caption : ^THE REAL OCTOPUS." • 

So short a time within a nation's life 
and such fine progress toward fuller light ! 

Jerry Simpson, in a speech at Wichita 
in 1890, discussing the transportation ques- 
tion, urged the apointment of a national com- 
mission to ascertain the actual value of rail- 
roads in order to obtain a basis upon which 
to determine just and reasonable rates of 
transportation. Republicans bubbled with 
glee: ^^What! that ignoramus, that whittler 
of dry goods boxes, that spouting demagogue, 
tendering his advice anent the great railways 

158 



JEKKY SIMPSON. 

that have upbuilt the great West !" 

But years later along came President 
Koosevelt and Senator La Follette, echoing 
that same piece of sound advice. 

Standing on the steps of the State 
House, at Topeka, Kansas, and pointing to 
the Santa Fe railway offices opposite, Jerry 
Simpson said: ^'Over there is now the seat 
of government; the mission of the People's 
Party is to move it over here." That was 
'^demagoguery, pure and simple" when Jerry 
Simpson said it. But a few years later, the 
Kansas City Star, the most influential* daily 
in the great West, said as much, and more, 
time and time again, and had great popular 
acclaim. 

Again the Kansas City Star: ''There is 
no more corrupting influence in the nation 
than the corporation campaign contributions 
and the organized corporation lobby. The 

159 



THE STOKY OF 

peoiile are in no mood to hear longer with 
tlie railroad politician and the railroad 
lobbyist/' 

As a matter of history, Populism was 
ready to dispense with these corrupting in- 
fhiences a decade and a half ago. 

ISTot reproduced from a Populist paper 
of the early Nineties, but from a recent issue 
of the Kansas City Star is this : 

""an amazing style of robbery. 

''If any man of your acquaintance were 
to cau^e his hands i,o be tied behind his bach 
and then invite theives and robbers to go 
through his pochets you would have no hesi- 
tancy in consigning him, in your mind at 
least, to a hospital for the insane. And there 
is little douht but that his case would speedily 
engage the attention of a commission to taJce 
action on his mental condition. 

160 



JEEEY SIMPSON. 

''This illustration exemplifies the differ- 
ence hetiveen individuals and the great cor- 
poratio7i which we call the government. 
Time and again through the action of Con- 
gress are the hands of Uncle Sam tied behind 
him and his person exposed to open plunder. 
This is exactly what happened yesterday 
when Congressman Murdoch's plan to save 
five million dollars by an honest method of 
weighing the mails was defeated. The rail- 
roads were literally invited by the law-mah- 
ing power, to step in and rob the nation of 
that amount of money. They were not even 
put to the trouble of way -laying the victim. 
Tie was bound and turned over to them by his 
so-called Representatives and guardians. 

''The very same things happen every 
time the government makes a contact for 
building material, for munitions for defense^ 



161 



THE STOllY OF 

for food and other supplies for its soldiers, 
or for whatever it buys. 

^'Was there ever before such an amazing 
system of robbery in a country calling itself 
free, and can the equal of it be found any- 
where else in the world today, even among 
the despotisms?" 

Twenty years ago Jerry Simpson advo- 
cated Federal control of Insurance. In 
Kansas, Webb Mcl^all, Populist Superinten- 
dent of Insurance, took liberties with "The 
System/' that well nigh called for the lamp 
post and boiling oil. Ten years later, 
Charles Barnes, Eepublican Superintendent 
of Insurance, is applauded for bravely fol- 
lowing in the pathway of his Populist prede- 
cessor. 

So merrily runs the world away. 

The "crack-brained Populists," plead 
for the holding of rich coal lands away from 

162 



JEERY SIMPSON. 

the railways ; Republican Senator LaFollette 
will help to carry out this crack-brained will 
and testament. 

The Popnlists talked day and night 
about a ''national system of Irrigation," pub- 
lic enlightenment along this line carried the 
day in legislation. 

Likewise, the safe-guarding of public 
lands; the preservations of forests and the 
limitations of land holdings, were frequently 
the subject of Populist speech. 

Mr. Garfield, Secretary of the Interior, 
has recently announced his intention of en- 
forcing the limitation to holdings of oil 

lands. 

True, the fulfilment along these lines 
lags as yet : " 'Tis not so deep as a well, nor 
so wide as a church door; but 'tis enough, 
'twill serve," pending the time when the vot- 
ers cast their ballots for their beliefs instead 

163 



THE STOEY OF 

of for their party programs. 

A demand for Postal Savings Banks 
went into Populists platforms and Populist 
argument. 

The Initiative and Referendum, now 
the organic law of four western common- 
wealths, stands to the credit of Populist 
literature and Populist iteration on the ros- 
trum. 

Por answer to Populist arguments on 
the money question there came these sneers 
from press and platform: ^''What do you 
know about 'feenance/ ^per capiter' or other 
sacred mysteries of the best financial system 
the world has ever seen V 

^^Get between plow handles," said Gov- ^ 
ernor Anthony, "you old hayseeds, and send 
your plow shires deeper — there's your reme- 

dv." 

t/ 

"You can't legislate properity into ex- 
164 



JEEEY SIMPSOK 

istence/' said Senator Ingalls, ^'smj more 
than you can make rain fall by legislation. '^ 

Populism argued that the producers of 
the bread of the whole nation ought to have, 
in time of stress, as fair a chance in a money 
way as the Wall street bankers. 

Whereat arose a shrieking chorus : "Ask- 
ing for a Sub-Treasury, are you ? w^ant to get 
negotiable certificates based on no better se- 
curity than wheat and corn and cotton ? Ha ! 
Ha ! ! Ha ! ! ! 

The old time merry-makers at Populist 
expense were boisterously funny over the 
*'per capiter idiots." Populism said there 
was not enough money in circulation to trans- 
act business, hence hard times and business 
stagnation. 

Fifteen years later. Governor Hoch, 
speaking at Washington, said, ''Kansas is 
doing famously. A state that has a hundred 

165 



THE STORY OF 

dollars per capita has a little right to boast, 
for I thinh, that is more than any of its sis- 
ter commonwealths can boast. In the Popu- 
list days of Jerry Simpson his followers did 
not demand more than half that much" 

As to corn and wheat and cotton merit- 
ing subtreasury conveniences, is it not the 
proud boast of today that these great sub- 
stantial sources of real wealth are the best 
assets of the nation ? 

Wall Street borrows of the West, and 
begs of Secretary Cortelyou — a little sixty 
millions or so, whenever a breath or a rumor 
disturbs its delicate constitution. Wall 
Street gets the cash, of course, — Populism is 
only enroute. 

The scandalous insecurity of a privately 
owned monetary system and its utter inabil- 
ity to serve the business and the industry of 
the country are being daily demonstrated. 

166 



JEEEY SIMPSON. 

The spectacle afforded by this financial 
Thing of legislative shreds and patches, with 
its dark corners, its suicides, its paralysis of 
business and its widespread distress, holding 
out its silly hands to clutch the morsel of gold 
a-sailing over from France and England to 
be used as a base to steady its doddering old 
existence is at once a comedy and an insult 
to American intelligence. 

Private banking is found wanting: 
government banks, with issue secured by the 
Patriotism and the boundless wealth of this 
great Republic will aid in making prosperity 
a permanence. 

The full contention of Populism as to 
money is on the highway to fulfillment. 

At the date of this writing there is a 
wave of "reform" engaged in sweeping dis- 
honest officials from places of public and 
semi-public trust. The shallow minded are 

167 



THE STOKY OF 

aflame witli zeal, believing tliat to turn out 
present rascals will inisure against futujre 
rascality. 'New York City is as sure of 
future purity, if it can get its ^'Traction 
thieves" and its ^'Insurance thieves'' ex- 
patriated or imprisoned as it once was of 
purity for all time to come when it expatri- 
ated and imprisoned Boss Tweed and his 
kind. 

Popular enthusiasm over the conviction 
of dishonest officials from Atlantic to Pacific 
coasts is just now quite as jaunty and as 
trustful of the future, as it was in divers 
times agone, when Indian Pings, Whisky 
Pings, Star Pouters, and Credit Mobilers 
were brought to justice. 

The purblind majority thus far fails to 

grasp the great fact that human nature, in 

essence, is unchangeable: given conditions 

that breed and foster greed and lust of power, 

168 



JERRr SIMPSON. 

and sure as night time follows day, so sure 
will public graft and personal demoralization 
ioUow on. 

Abraham Lincoln saw that the Repub- 
lic could not endure half slave and half free : 
Populism saw that the Republic could not 
save its honor and its private morals with 
the great business of public service admin- 
istered half in the interest of private posses- 
sion and half in the interest of the public 
welfare. The inevitable clash of interests 
begets a contest wherein guile and venality 
are spawned. 

Hence all this putting honest men in 
office, this appointing of commissions to in- 
spect and to supervise, yields but scant and 
temporary relief. It does not touch the root 
cf the real remedy. Indeed, the animating 
spirit of the present rigorous reform is well 



169 



THE STORY OF 

voiced in President Roosevelt's utterance of 
August 1899 : 

^'During the last few months I have 
been growing exceedingly alarmed at tie 
growth of popular unrest and popular dis- 
trust on the Trust question. It is largely 
aimless and baseless, but there is a very un- 
pleasant side to this over-run Trust devel- 
opment and what 1 fear is, if we do not have 
some consistent policy to advocate, that the 
multitudes will follow the crank who advo- 
cates an absurd policy, but who does advocate 
something.'^ 

There is open confession, spread upon 
the pages of the daily press, that the only 
way to head off the public ownership of rail- 
ways, is for the corporations to acquiesce in 
the popular demands for strict surveilance 
and for quasi public management. Thus, 
political conservatism, failing to comprehend 

170 



JERRY SIMPSON. 

Twentieth Century democracy, distrutful of 
the people, yet pallid with fear of them, will 
grudgingly dole out legislative makeshifts 
and half way reforms. 

Meanwhile, Populism, enroute, is placid 
and patient. Its truths have been uttered. 
Its ideas are marching on and it is a fore- 
gone conclusion that the future failure of all 
the patchwork, cumbersome, jumbled legis- 
lation now under way, will serve to accelerate 
the evolution of an expert public service un- 
hampered by ignorant, impertinent surveil- 
ance, or untainted by corruption and private 
profit. 

More than one milliom votes were cast 
in 1892 for James B. Weaver, the Populist 
candidate for President. 

In 1896 the Populist Party became the 
ally of the Democratic Party and more than 
six and one half, million votes were cast for 

in 



THE STOKY OF 

Mr. Bryan. Thus the literature of Popu- 
lism was carried to an enormous number of 
friendly readers throughout the nation. 
Moreover, during all those years, hosts of 
Eepublicans listened to Populism on the ros- 
trum and read its literature. They were in- 
tent upon the refutation of the arguments of 
their opponents — they came to scoff but re- 
mained to pray. And the burden of their 
prayer was to be shoT^Ti how to avert defeat 
by the assimilation of as much of Populist 
truth as had grown to acceptance in the 
popular mind — and to labor for progress and 
tlie nation's welfare within the Republican 
Party. 

This amende lioner'able comes from 
William Allen AMiite: 

''Ten years ago, this great organ of re- 
form, wrote a piece entitled 'What^s the Mat- 
ter With Kansas?' In it great sport was 

172 



JEKEY SIMPSON. 

made of a 'perfectly honest gentleman of un- 
usual legal ability ivJio happened to he run- 
ning for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court 
of this State, because he said, in effect, that 
Hhe rights of the user are paramount to the 
rights of the owner/ Those were paleozoic 
Holmes; hoiv far the world has moved since 
then. If the Gazette had not guyed the 
Populist candidate for Chief Justice for tell- 
ing the truth, ijie Gazette would have been 
'•printed in a little 20:^60 office on Sixth 
Avenue, about two jumps ahead of the sher- 
iff. The Gazette was wrong in those days 
and Judge Doster was right. But he was 
out too ea7'ly in the season and his views got 
frost bitten. This is a funny world. About 
all we can do is to move with it.'' 

Fine ! With but one little error ; Popu- 
list ideas were not out too early, nor were 



173 



THE STORY OF 

they frost bitten, they are climbing riotously, 
like Jack's bean stalk. 

Says Governor Hocb, in the 'New York 
Tribune : ''I do not believe that there are 
anywhere on earth sixteen hundred thousand 
people maintaining a higher standard of 
morals than the sixteen hundred thousand 
ivho constitute the population of Kansas/^ 

Well, why not, why not, wasn't the 
Peoples Party bom in Kansas ? 



174 



A SYMPOSIUM. 



XVII. 
A Symposium. 

Tom L. Johnson: '^1 loved Jerry 
Simpson. In all the time of my acquaint- 
ance I never saw him fail, either in judg- 
ment, in courage, or in discretion." 

Tom Feed: ^'1 learned to love him 
well. I never knew him to lose his head or 
his feet.'' 

Senator Long: "We were opposing 
candidates, but personal friends." 

Dennis Flynn: "We were neighbors 
in Kansas and at Washington. His col- 
leagues in Congress respected him and ad- 
mired his ready wit. The benches and the 
galleries were never empty when it was 

kno^vn that Jerry Simpson would speak." 

177 



THE STOKY OF 

Tom McNeal: "I was intimately ac- 
quainted with Jerry Simpson. We differed 
in politics, but I respected him for his per- 
sonal integrity." 

William J. Bryan : "Jerry's speeches in 
Congress contained a delightful comming- 
ling of logic and humor, and his hearty good 
humor made him popular on both sides of the 
House." 

Governor Hoch : "Jerry Simpson com- 
manded the respect of friend and foe alike. 
He often experienced, as well as exemplified, 
Garfield's beautiful sentiment that, the 
sweetest flowers that bud and blossom in this 
world, clamber over the wall of party poli- 
tics." 

Eon. W, D. Vincent : "I was his close 
friend and neighbor. Day by day, and all 
the time, he was the same genial, kindly and 

humorous Jerrv." 

178 



JERRY SIMPSON. 

Louis F. Post: "Jerry Simpson was 
open, strong, unflinching and as tlioughtful, 
prudent and rational as lie was frank and 
courageous. He was a democratic nobleman 
who never forgot a friend or failed to forgive 
an enemy. I felt it an honor to be able to 
number him among my closest and most 
cherished friends.". 

Hon. Champ Clark: "I shall always 
cherish the memory of Jerry Simpson. He 
was genial, kind, bright and faithful. I val- 
ued him highly as my friend." 

Hamlin Garland: "I saw much of him 
in Washington. I came to like the ^Sock- 
less Sage' because of the quaint charm of his 
manner, his kindliness, his humor, his quick 
wit and the sincerty of his convictions." 

C. W. DeFreest: "I was associated 
with him in business in ]^ew Mexico. He 
was one of the most companionable men I 

179 



THE STOKY OF 

ever met. I know of no man dearer to tis 
friends or more beloved, than Jerry Simp- 
son." 

Henry George, Jr. : ^^I have always 
believed that Jerry Simpson was the best ex- 
ample of the Abraham Lincoln type of man 
I had ever met. Eugged, strong, with a keen 
perception of fundamental principles, he had 
an abiding faith in the American standards 
as expressive of the idea of democratic rule, 
j^nd he had that largeness of spirit that 
showed itself so eminently in Lincoln — the 
power of which was expressed in a humor 
that carried its will while dulling the edge 
of opposition. His broadness of mind and 
greatness of heart represented the best that is 
in our American life, and when this Ameri- 
can sailor and farmer took the floor in debate 
in the House of Representatives at Washing- 
ton, the old and the young, the wise, the 

180 



JEKKY SIMPSO]^. 

supercilious and the cunning all listened ; for 
in Jerry Simpson spoke sturdy manhood, 
clear sense, broad, generous feeling, undaunt- 
able courage, a natural, picturesque oratory, 
and a healthy humor that could laugh down 
the most formidable opposition. 

"I respected and loved him as a friend ; 
and as a press correspondent at Washington 
when he was a Member of Congress, I re- 
garded him as among the ablest men in pub- 
lic life at that time — an estimate which now, 
years later, I most heartily confirm." 

Judge Frank Doster: ''Jerry Simpson 
Avas a man whom not only Kansas, but the 
jSIation, will remember to love." 



181 



THE BABES lis^ THE WOODS. 



XVIII. 

The Bahes in the Woods. 

Jerry and Jane are at home again in 
Earber County. 

The last contest between '^Chester" and 
Jerry has been fought — and won by Mr. 
Long. Chester I. Long will go to Congress, 
Jerry Simpson will never more be in official 
place. A century of new thought has flowed 
into the last decade. ^^It does not matter 
so much/' says Emerson, ''how far a man has 
got, as which way he is facing." As with a 
man so with the world at large. 

One Sunday morning Jerry is stretched 
at length on the lounge in their cosy farm 
house living room. He is holding a news- 

185 



THE STORY OF 

paper before his face to hide the mischievous 
twinkle in his eyes from the observation of 
his son Lester. 

Lester's face is anything but placid. 
For the first time in his life he finds it hard 
to broach a matter to his father. 

Lester fidgets, casts anxious glances to- 
wards the obstructing newspaper. He 
wants to break the silence, he lacks courage 
and goes to the kitchen. 

''Ma, I wish you'd tell him." 

''Oh, son, I think you ought to tell him 
yourself." 

"But, Ma — oh, well, I will, hang it all." 

"Son" returns to the sitting room. The 
newspaper still absorbs his father's attention. 

Another spell of fidgets, another rush to 
the kitchen. 

"Ma, I think I'll wait until tomorrow, 
then I'll ask Pa to go hunting, he likes to go 

186 



JEKEY SIMPSON. 

with me, then I'll get him in a fence corner 
and tell him I'll shoot if he says no." 

^'E^ow, son, just go in and have it over 
with, Pa wdll be all right." 

Jane goes in and whispers, ''Do make 
it easy for the boy." 

Jane goes back to the kitchen. Lester, 
breathlessly, ''Did yon tell him, Ma?" 

"!N^o ,son, it wouldn't be proper, go your- 
self." 

Lester rushes in, "Pa, I want — Pa, I'd 
like — well, Pa I'm going to get married." 

"Oh, are you, son ? Well who is the 
other Babe in the Woods ? There's some 
lady mixed up in this case, isn't there ?" 

Of course "Pa" has known all the time 
the cause of Lester's perturbation. Jerry 
and Jane had talked half the night before 
about their boy with all the tenderness and 
all the wonderment that come to parents 

187 



THE STORY OF 



when tliej awaken with surprise to the fact 
that their little child — their baby — is a 
grown np and getting ready to take into the 
life that has heretofore belonged so closely to 
them another to whom he will cleave closer 
than to father or mother. 

'The other Babe in the Woods" was a 
sweet school girl, Gerlie Kelly by name. 
Jerry and Jane took her to their Avarm hearts. 
Little TIcllie's place v, ?i^ not quite vacant af- 
ter Gerlie came. 

Lester brought his pretty wife to the 
farm home and the same evening Jerry called 
Jane aside and whispered, ''Let us go on a 
bridal tour. We'll take the night train for 
Kansas City and leave the Babes in the 
Woods to keep house by themselves, they will 
be happier alone." 

"But," said Jane, "I'm not ready to go 
so soon." "Oh, never mind, just go as you 

188 



JEKRY SIMPSOIs^. 

are and we'll buy some wedding toggery in 
Kansas City." 

xind so they went. — these life-long 
chums — a wiser, sadder, happier pair than 
sailed so long ago upon the Summer Cloud. 

For one blessed, care-free month they 
staid in Kansas City. 

Jerry read to Jane, they joked, they 
laughed, they shopped, they went to the 
theatres, they ordered good things at the res- 
taurants, they planned for the future of the 
dear children in the home nest, whom Jerry 
always spoke of as their Babes in the AYoods. 
They talked much and wondered about the 
mysterious Great Beyond. 

And this their second bridal trip was 
better, richer than their first. 



189 



THE SIMPLE LIFE. 



XIX. 

The Simple Life. 

The home life of the Simpson's at Wash- 
ington was replete with comfort. Mrs. 
Simpson was a prime home manager. There 
was no extravagance nor attempt at vain dis- 
play. The Simpson bank book was for 
^'Jane's" nnqnestioned use, as much a matter 
v'l course as for Jerry's. 

In this well ordered household there 
vrere no special company ways or manners. 
The simple routine of everyday life was 
amply provident for their guests. The home 
atmosphere was cordial and attractive. 



THE STOKY OF 

Jerry was always "company'' in Jane's 
reckoning. His return from an absence, 
ever so brief, was proceeded by a refurbish- 
ing and dainty freshening up such as in many 
households betoken the coming of some form- 
al and distinguished visitor. Jane put on 
her best house-gowns for Jerry and there went 
into her greeting of her husband an odd little 
mixture of half bashfulness and pretty cere- 
mony that was quite without constraint yet 
with a flavor such as goes with youth-time. 
The wear and tear of years — the strain of 
tempermental difference had tugged in vain 
to bring apathy or commonplaceness of regard 
between these two who chose each other at the 
spelling school so many years before. 

Parade or boastfulness werQ quite out 
of the question for Jerry Simpson but in 
some subtle, though unspoken way, it was 
manifest that he appreciated all the capacity 

194 



JEREY SIMPSOI^. 

and tlae cookery of his wife. He never ad- 
dressed lier in endearing words, but there 
went into the utterance of her name the whole 
meaning which others squander or dilute in 
adjectives. When he said ^'Jane" you felt 
that he had expressed the utmost — that he 
had told of the anchorage of his life; the one 
word ^Mane" settled it. It was a strange 
power that this unique man possessed — that 
of putting subtle meanings into words. 

It was in the Washington home that 
many of his choicest friendships were nour- 
ished. Probably no experience in Jerry 
Simpson's life was more soul-satisfying than 
his meeting, and subsequent warm friendship 
with Henry George. This great propounder 
of the gospel of human rights had been for 
many years regarded by Jerry with rever- 
ence such as religious devotees render to the 

founders of their faith. 

195 



THE STOKY OF 

Among the choice guests at the Wash- 
ington home were Hamlin Garland, Henry 
George, Jr., and Tom Johnson. This coterie 
of Single Taxers visited, joked, philoso- 
phised and planned together as to ways and 
means to lift the burdens from the toil-bent 
backs of their fellow men. The commun- 
nings of these friends were sacramental 
seasons. 

Tom Johnson taught Jerry to ride the 
bicycle and these two great souled men took 
keen delight in their wheel rambles in the 
country about the beautiful national capital. 

It was in the Washington home that an 
alarming illness came upon Jerry. During 
the dread days of suspense when his life was 
in jeopardy a steady stream of anxious call- 
ers strove to render service. Members of 
Congress of all political faiths attested their 
affection for their sick colleague. And when 

196 



JEERY SIMPS0:N^. 

his days of convalescence came and Jerry 
went over to tlie House tlie Speaker paused 
in the transaction of business ^vhile the Mem- 
bers with beaming faces tendered a greeting 
that was prolonged into an ovation. 

Jerry Simpson's ways with children 
v\^ere as unusual in manifestation as his other 
distinctive personal traits. He never talked 
down to their comprehension, instead he lis- 
tened with sincere attention to their childish 
Vvdsdom. Little children turned to him in- 
stinctively and he received the token of their 
favor with keen relish — they were friends on 
equal terms. Ah, Avhat a democrat he was. 

Had it not been for Jerry's generosity 
with friends there woukl have been a few 
thousand dollars more to his credit when he 
left Congress. 

From his six years of service at the ISTa- 
tion's Capital, Jerry came back to his Barber 

197 



THE STOEY OF 

County farm in Kansas, poor of purse. He 
retired from a public career, which to a man 
of less integrity, might have afforded un- 
stinted opportunity for private gain. 

What other should you look for in a 
man so calmly certain of the essential good- 
ness of mankind and so supremely trustful 
of the eventual establishment of justice upon 
earth than that he would remain unruffled by 
temporary rebuff of his political principles 
and undisconcerted by personal defeat in 
politics. 

What other should you look for in a 
man whose mind his kingdom was, than that 
his resourcefulness would carry him cheerily 
through whatever vicissitudes befell. 

It was part of the popular misconcep- 
tion malingering from the early days of 
Populism that Jerry was incapable in busi- 
ness ways: quite the reverse was true. 

198 



JEERY SIMPSOK. 

Fifteen thousand dollars cash and not 
one dollar of debt stood to Jerry Simpson's 
account when he went from northern Kansas 
to Barber County in 1883. A modest sum 
but every dollar earned by industry and by 
discreet and careful deals involving even 
wiser personal oversight than is oftentimes 
required in the accumulation of huge for- 
tunes where speculation or legislative man- 
ipulation enter as factors in the game. 

Abraham Lincoln said, after his election 
to the presidency; "I hope some time to be 
worth twenty-five thousand dollars, that is 
all anyone ought to possess." 

During Jerry's second term in Congress, 
an illness threatening fatality came upon 
him. Then followed a most exhausting po- 
litical campaign. He did not regain his 
former health. Labor on the farm soon 
PTCW bevond his physical endurance. The 

199 



THE STOEY OF 

farm home was sold and the family moved 
to Wichita where they lived three years. 
While there, Jerry became the manager of a 
live stock commission, which for a time did a 
thriving business. He was a valuable and 
favorite member of the Western Cattlemen's 
Association. 

His steadily declining health caused him 
in 1901 to seek a home at Eos well, l^ew 
Mexico, where he went into the real estate 
business with Charles De Freest. He also 
secured an agency for the sale of Santa Fe 
railway lands. He chartered a car, loaded 
it with the luscious products of that fertile 
countrv and made a tour of the middle states. 
His interesting lectures and original exposi- 
tions of that picturesque and fertile country 
attracted many settlers to jSTew Mexico. 
Perhaps none of the several breadwinning 
ventures of his life gave him more genuine 

200 



jERKr simpso:n". 

pleasure than this opportunity to persuade 
people to turn their attention to the develop- 
ment of nature's storehouses which hold 
abundant health and wealth and human 
happiness. 

Jerry Simpson's enthusiasm in this 
Land and Immigration enterprise was con- 
tagious. It was a poetic finis to the life work 
of this ardent lover of [N'ature — this heliever 
in the soil and in the simple life. 

At Wichita, in 1901, a little son was 
born to '^Son" Lester and Gerlie — Jerry's 
''Babes in the Woods." They named him 
Jerry, jr., and upon this small boy his grand- 
father lavished tenderness such as long years 
before went to his o^vn Little Hallie. The 
young people, Lester and Gerlie, moved from 
AVichita to Roswell and made their home 
uear their parents. Perhaps Jerry Senior 
had never in all his modest life come nearer 

201 



THE STORY OF 

to being vain than wTien, his grandson, ar 
riving at time of speech, made bright and 
quaint remarks beyond his years. "^Hiat 
jolly chums these two were. The small man 
and his grandfather walked the streets of 
Roswell hand in hand in perfect fulness of 
mutual admiration. 

The new friends in the village of Ros- 
well took Jerry Simpson to their hearts, 
there as elsewhere, he was a beloved and 
honored citizen. His wit sparkled and his 
humor glowed for the pleasure of this small 
circle as unstintedly as for his larger audi- 
ences on the national stage at Washington. 



202 



OLD EKIENDS AIs^D NEW DAYS. 



XX. 

Old Friends and New Days. 

It was written in the "book of fate that 
for Jerry Simpson there would be one more 
old time political meeting — one more occa- 
sion of hot enthusiasm, of upturned glowing 
faces, of hand-clasps, and of greetings laden 
with such loyalty and love as seldom go from 
man to man. It was his last public speech. 
It was at Pond Creek, Oklahoma. An im- 
mense crowd of old friends awaited his ar- 
rival. When he left the train men rushed 
forward, took him on their shoulders and 
bore him to the place of meeting. I^o time 
of the old times exceeded this in fervor and 
in that strange delirium which only a crowd 
in love with a political idol can beget. 

The master of ceremonies was Charley 
205 



THE STORY OF 

Taylor, an official under the administration 
of Governor Leedy, the second Populist gov- 
ernor of Kansas. 

^'I can see now," said Jerry, ''why I 
failed of election the last time I ran for Con- 
gress. Here you are, a large part of my old 
time majority from the good old seventh dis- 
trict. You moved over here to make new 
homes in this rich country. Kansas lost 
what Oklahoma gained." 

For three full hours, Jerry spoke, with all 
the fire and all the fun, and all the fervid 
prophecy that vitalized his speeches years be- 
fore. And when he took his leave he pledged 
them all to undying loyalty to Populist prin- 
ciples and to untiring efforts to bring Okla- 
homa into the Union holding out a fairer, 
fuller chance for men than any of her sister 
commonwealths. 

As a goodby word he said : ''Boys, you 
have given me today, some of the happiest 
moments of my life." 

206 



I 



life 



THE JOUENEY EKDED. 



XXI. 

The Journey Ended. 

Like unto a drama on the mimic stage 
when the closing act is reached there need 
be but hints and touches — sentences expla- 
tive here and there, to synthesize the cumula- 
tive story. So, in this story of real life, 
there needs be but a flash light here and there 
to show w^here and how^ the brief time was 
passed before the closing day and hour, when, 
for Jerry Simpson, time surrendered to 
eternity. 

It is September 1905. The closing 
scenes rush swiftly toward the curtain fall. 

Jerry is at home in Roswell. He has 
anuerism of the heart. For months he has 

209 



THE STORY OF 

felt death drawing near. He suffers great 
bodily pain. He can speak only in whispers. 
But there is no gloom about the house, in- 
stead there is an exaltation, as if the on-com- 
ing Solemnity heralded a sublime and per- 
fect peace. 

As to the Life Beyond, Jerry has no 
dogmatism, he sometimes says, ^'I rather 
think that we shall go on and live and learn ; 
in this life we get our first lessons and then 
pass on to other grades." 

Jerry Simpson loves to live upon this 
earth. He would like to regain health 
against the time which he so surely believes 
is coming when the American people will re- 
alig-n their forces and engage in another 
mighty contest on issues vital to the nation. 
But, if it cannot be — if he is never to be 
well again — why then he will look death in 
the face as squarely and as imafraid as he has 

210 



.ikii 



JEKEY SIMPSON. 

faced all things else in life. He has found 
men friendly, it has been good to be alive, 
so, then he 'Svill press death's hand, and 
having died, feel none the less how beautiful 
it is to be alive." 

Jane, once the invalid, tenderly cared 
for by her husband, is now the stronger. It 
is she who reads aloud the last few months. 
She reads Trine's In Tune With the Infinite, 
and, for the very last book of all, she reads 
The Riddle of the Universe, The time that 
Jerry long ago foretold has come to little 
Jane, '"'she imderstands." 

Jerry is beamingly happy, despite his 
pain and weakness, when ''Son'' Lester and 
Gerlie come. He fondles Jerry Jr., and 
takes great delight in whispered chats with 
him. 

The word has gone abroad that Jerry 
Simpson is alarmingly ill. Letters of sym- 

211 



THE STOKY OE 

patliY, telegrams of inquiry, pour in. 
Friends make pilgrimages to Roswell. 

The new home and the new friends are 
very dear to Jerry, yet he yearns for Kansas 
that so honored him and that he honored in 
return. ' 'f 

One day, in the late September, Jerry 
and Jane, start for Wichita. These two have 
journej^ed many times together, this is the 
last time. 

The doors of St. Francis Hospital, 
Wichita, open to a sadly worn, exhausted 
man. But worn and pain-wracked though 
he was, he smiled and jested. Gloom and 
Jerry simply could not live together. 

Judge Stevens, of Medicine Lodge, 
came to St. Francis Plospital to serve his old 
friend. 

Dr. Minick, the hospital physician, was 
the Republican committeeman who officiated 

212 



JEKKY SIMPSOI^. 

on the side of Senator Long during the fam- 
ous Simpson-Long debates. 

Dr. D. H. Galloway, beloved friend and 
attendant physician at Roswell, assisted in 
the care of Jerry at St. Francis. 

The good Sisters of St. Francis Hospital 
marveled at the stream of callers, the tele- 
grams, the loads of flowers for this new 
patient. 

Inquiries came to the '^Wichita Eagle" 
office from all over America, asking to be 
kept advised as to Jerry Simpson's condition. 
The days at the hospital run into wrecks. 
The friends of the brave, cheery patient gath- 
ei now and then a little hope. The press 
dispatches are anxiously read ; in many thou- 
sand homes the first item sought in the daily 
paper is that which brings word of the sick 
man at Wichita. 

The physicians can permit but few 
213 



THE STORY OF 

friends to enter the sick room; among those 
who may see Jerry are his loyal friends 
David Leahy and Victor Mnrdock. Mr. 
Mnrdock holds the place in Congress which 
once was Jerry's. He is the ^ ^little red- 
headed reporter/' named thus hy Jerry in 
the early Populist days, who started the 
"sockless" story. Jerry helieves in him and 
loves him well. With Mr. Leahy, Jerry 
leaves a special word to the ^^hoys" of the 
press. 

There is time between paroxysms of 
pain for much conference with Jane. Jerry 
wishes her to buy a little home and live in 
Wichita — which she will do. He also talks 
much of Jerry Jr. Jane is enjoined to look 
to it that the little lad is given the best op- 
portunity for schooling. He thinks there 
are great things possible for the child. 

In one impassioned hour he said, "Oh, 
214 



JEEEY SIMPSON. 

Jane do not be afraid when I am gone, I will 
take care of you, I will be with yon, no harm 
shall come to yon." 

Whether this assurance to the little wife 
he had so tenderly shielded arose from some 
vast pity that made the wish father to the 
thought or whether it was conviction flashed 
upon him from the luminous Life to which 
he was very near, no one can surely say. 

Lester, Gerlie and Jerry Jr. came to St. 
Francis Hospital for the last days. 

"Come and kiss me, son," said Jerry to 
Lester, and then, half shame-facedly, he said, 
"Jane do you think I^m a baby ?" 

The nurses, wanting perfect quiet, some- 
times sent Mrs. Simpson from the sick-room. 
Jerry then would motion Jane to him and 
whisper, "Come back as soon as they are 
gone and snuggle down by me." And she 
would slip back and they would hold each 

215 



THE STORY OF 

others hands and talk over early days and 
laugli, gleefully, like prankish children be- 
cause they had disobeyed orders and eluded 
the nurses. 

There are but a few hours left. Some- 
thing has cleared away and Jerry can speak 
aloud. Then comes a spasm of pain more 
dreadful than any before endured and Jerry 
says: ^'Well now I'm up aginst it; this is 
the real demon, all the rest has been a joke." 

There are now five minutes left, Jerry 
smiles, the pain is gone, he breathes easily. 
Then all is quiet, and Jane and Lester and 
Gerlie and Jerry Jr. look at his peaceful 
happy face and know that he is dead. It is 
the morning of October twenty-third, 1905. 

Flags are at half mast, in other Kansas 
towns, as well as in Wichita. The body lies 
in state in the Masonic Temple. Women of 
the Relief Corps drape the flag about him. 

216 



JERKY SIMPSOK 

The solemn service of the Scottish Rite de- 
gree of Masonry will be held. The ministra- 
tions which others hnd in churches, Jerry 
Simpson found in the Masonic Lodge. 

These loving friends, Victor Murdoch, 
Col. Thomas G. Fitch, Amos McLain, P. M. 
Anderson, F. A. Amedon, and O. H. Bentley, 
will bear the body to the grave. 

The hour for the funeral service is 
come. The large auditorium is crowded, 
many are unable to gain entrance. There 
is a blend of sadness and exultation in the 
feeling of many of those present : sad be- 
cause there will be no more earthly greeting 
from Jerry Simpson ; exultant in the mem- 
ory of the noble life of this tried and true 
American. 

The w^hole panorama of his life passes 
in great and glowing pictures before the 
heart-sore listeners while Victor Murdock 

217 



THE STOEY OF 

pays this great tribute to his friend: 

^'Here halt the quick, and here the dead 
progress. He has gone out alone, far in the 
deep darkness, where for each one of us a 
grave is hidden. Eye nor voice nor hand 
may follow him. The black barrier is 
dropped between him and us — the black bar- 
rier between the quick and the dead. Fac- 
ing the iron and cruel gate stand the quick, 
some stark in fear, some benumbed with 
grief, some wrapped in wonder, but all alikb 
halted, arrested inexorably. Before the 
mighty mandate we pause, and then, in all 1 

humility, cry out, as children of sorrow, our # 

little word of comfort to his loved ones, our J 

little word of tribute to a friend. If we 
hope, refuse us not the privilege. If we 
reach out a little in the dark refuse us not. 
If the stars and the wind and the sunshine 
and the rose whisper to us the evidence of 

218 



JERKY SIMPSOK. 

infinity and promise of eternity, let the ma- 
terial world refuse ns not. I'or standing out 
against the bald, black wall this afternoon 
let us cry out again; for our friend we can- 
not call, our friend we cannot longer see, let 
US cry out the only challenge that ever met 
the thrown glove of death — the thundering 
answer of a mighty faith. The soul is im- 
mortal, for, as God, the giver, is infinite, so 
is the spirit He gives eternal. 

^'When he was dying, Horace Greely 
murmured: Tame is a vapor; popularity 
an accident; riches take wings; those who 
bless today will curse tomorrow. Only one 
thing endures — character.' Jerry Simpson 
had character. 

^'I asked him once why he came to Kan- 
sas — what called him here. 'The magic of 
a kernel, the witchcraft in a seed. The de- 
sire to put something into the ground and 

219 



THE STORY OF 

see it grow and reproduce its kind came to 
me, and I did not resist it/ he said. ^That's 
why I came to Kansas,' 

"The mischievous fates placed him in 
the only agricultural section of the world 
capable of spontanietj in novel political ac- 
tion in Kansas. And when the political 
storm arose, there sprang, full-armed, to lead 
it, the son of the Canadian snows, the son of 
the lashing lake, the son of the Kansas prai- 
rie — Jerry Simpson. 

"Do you remember him : his entrance to 
the stage; his attitude before an audience; 
that smile, that charming, winning, and that 
warning smile ? Do you remember his eyes, 
the eyes where lightning played fast and in- 
cessant from a hot heart and an electric 
mind ? Do you remember the whole attitude 
that cried out to you, 'Come on, and beware V 
In that day, men in Kansas carried him on 

220 



JERKY SIMPSO]S[. 

their shoulders. And when success came, 
Washington yielded its admiration, for, in 
the sally of debate there, no adversary ever 
put him do^vn, but many v^ent down before 
him. It was a great, a picturesque career, 
and he deserved it all. He won it all, and 
he won it alone." 



The journey ends at the beautiful Maple 
Grove Cemetery, where later on they brought 
the coffined dust of Little Hallie and made 
a little grave beside that of her father. 



And here his friend, who knew him long 
and well, the writer of this story, says good- 
by. A kindlier, more imselfish, more chival- 
rous man I never knew. 

"Lord keep his memory green.'' 
221 



^3^S^3^i^^SvS^Sv^Xl^S^^!^^l^!X•>^0^.^^ 




\ 

\ ■ 

IP 

m 



..J I -■ 



MRS. JERRY SIMPSON 




LITTLE HALLIE 





LESTER SIMPSON 




GERLIE SIMPSON 




JERRY SIMPSON, Jr 




RUSSELL SIMPSON 



TEIBUTES FROM FRIEi^DS. 



JERRY SIMPSON. 



II0:N'. TOM L. JOHNSOK 

Deae Mes. Diggs — 

I am delighted that you are vvriting the 
life of Jerry Simpson, a rough diamond of 
a man whose every impulse was for good. I 
learned to love him when we were members 
of Congress together. 

Before he arrived he was heralded as 
^^Sockless Jerry," which gave him a false 
and unpleasant introduction but as he became 
better known the real greatness of his char- 
acter developed. When he left Congress 
there was no man who held the respect of 
both friends and foes more than Jerry Simp- 
son. I 

225 



THE STORY OF 

I have seen him face the hot blooded 
members of Congress hurling almost insults 
at him and in his quiet dignified way humili- 
ate them in the presence of the whole House. 
One scene especially I remember in which 
under a vile attack, without any excitement 
whatever, he first resisted and then con- 
quered his antagonist who within a few days 
not only apologized but became one of his 
strongest admirers. 

Congressman Hatch of Missouri, one of 
the democratic leaders in endorsement of 
Jerry Simpson's real democracy once offered 
on the floor of the House to trade off ten 
weak-kneed democrats for Jerry Simpson the 
populist and the sentiment was warmly ap- 
plauded. He did this to emphasize his be- 
lief in Jerry Simpson's democracy by com- 
parison with some men who only thought 
they were democrats. 

226 



* 



JEREY SIMPSOK. 

I taught Jerry to ride a bicycle and we 
made many a journey in and around Wash- 
ington. It was on these trips more than at 
any other time that I learned the big impulse 
that inspired his life and the tremendous 
sacrifice he was making and had made in 
the cause of the plain people. 

There were some men who dressed bet- 
ter; some men who had a smoother flow of 
words, but in his rugged way he had the 
greatest power of happy expression of any 
man I knew. 

During all my acquaintance with him I 
never saw him fail either in judgment, cour- 
age or discretion. 

Trusting that your work will in some 

way give the picture of this great man's life, 

I remain, 

Sincerely yours, 

Tom L. JoHis^soiT. 

Cleveland, Ohio. 

227 



THE STORY OF 

SENATOR CHESTER I. LOISTG. 
From 1886 to 1902 in every political 
campaign Jerry Simpson and I supported 
different tickets and candidates. In four 
campaigns we were opposing candidates for 
congress. During all that time we disagreed 
on political principles but our personal rela- 
tions were friendly. He was a most skillful 
antagonist, a resourceful debater and one of 
the best political speakers Kansas has pro- 
duced. 

Medicine Lodge, Kansas. 

TOM McNEAL. 
I made Mr. Simpson's acquaintance 
very shortly after he settled in Barber coun- 
ty, and was intimately acquainted with him 
during a considerable portion of the time 
of his residence there. While it chanced that 
he and I differed politically, I always enter- 

228 



JERRY SIMPSON. 

tained a liigli opinion of his ability and re- 
spect for his personal integrity. I regarded 
him as a remarkable man. He was pos- 
sessed of great native wit, shrewdness and 
courage. He was a bom leader of men and 
easily commanded both the respect and fidel- 
ity of his followers. His native wit and 
shrewdness enabled him to adapt himself 
easily to all sorts and conditions of men, so 
that he was at home, either when mingling 
with the rough bearded farmers of his own 
district, or with the smooth shaven and well 
dressed denizens of the metropolis. 

An omnivorous reader and possessed of 
a marvelous memory, his mind became a 
veritable store house of information. This 
fact connected with his natural mental alert' 
ness made him one of the most formidable 
antagonists in a rough and tumble debate that 

this country has ever known. 

229 



THE STOKY OF 

Long before his death his political ene- 
mies had ceased to ridicule him and had 
come to regard him as a man of much more 
than ordinary power. Few men, indeed, 
have passed away about whom more was 
said, spoken and written that was commend- 
atory, and less that was deprecatory as to 
either his character or ability. 

My personal relations with him were 
always of the most pleasant character and I 
learned of his death with feelings of pro- 
found regret. 

Topeha, Kansas. ' 

WILLIAM JE:tTls^IIS[GS BEYAN. 
AVhen Jerry Simpson, as he was famil- 
iarly called, entered Congress he was dubbed 
"Sockless Simpson," and "The Sockless 
Statesman," by some of the eastern papers. 
But his colleagues were not long in finding 

230 



JERKY SIMPSON. 

out that his claim to distinction was in his 
head rather than in his feet. 

He at once entered the lists as a debater 
and was the hero of a number of interesting 
discussions. His speeches contained a de- 
lightful commingling of logic and humor, and 
his hearty good nature made him popular on 
both sides of the House. 

]^o question under consideration in the 
National Congress was too large for him to 
grapple with and he clarified every subject 
which he discussed. 

My esteem for Jerry Simpson increased 
as my acquaintance with him grew. 
Lincoln J NehrasJca. 

WILLIAM GAREISON. 

God gave us prophets of old to warn the 
people of coming danger. When our flag 
had brooded over slavery eighty years, pro- 

231 



THE STORY OF 

tecting not the weak, God gave us a Lincoln 
to give the nation a new birth of freedom. 

Allien combinations of wealth were fill- 
ing the halls of Congress with their agents; 
when the great Mississippi Valley seemed 
content with a system that taxed the people 
TO make millionaires; when the wealth of a 
nation was in the hands of a few, it was then 
we heard the voice of Jerry Simpson crying 
in the school houses of Kansas: ^'Equal 
rights to all, special privileges to none." 

I had the pleasure of nominating Jerry 
Simpson, at Wichita, for his second term in 
Congress. He was greatly beloved and was 
regarded as the Abraham Lincoln cf Kansas. 
^^Tien the history of reform is ^vritten; 
when we have a government administered 
by and for the people let it be said of Jerry 
Simpson that he gave the best of his life to 
free labor from the bondage of capital. 
Pond Creek, Oklahoma. 
232 



1 
J 



JEKRY SIMPSON. 

DEJ^NIS rLY:N'K 
Jerry Simpson and I differed radically 
in politics, but we have always been the 
warmest personal friends. I have known 
him for twenty years. We both lived in 
Barber county when only a few of us were 
living there, and when we both went to Con- 
gress we neighbored at the Capital City and 
neighbored closely. Mr. Simpson did not 
prove discreditable to Kansas in Congress. 
Before his entrance to that body people 
thought they would see a show, but his col- 
leagues soon learned to respect him and then 
learned to admire his ready wit and fine 
natural talents. He made himself agreeable 
to the members and took an active part in 
the proceedings of the lower House. The 
benches and galleries were never empty when 
ii: was known that he would have the floor 
to speak. 

Guthrie, Ohlahoma. 

233 



THE STOKY OF 

DAVID LEAHY. 

It was mj privilege to have an intimate 
personal acquaintance with Mr. Simpson for 
a period long antedating the appearance of 
either an ambition or a disposition to enter 
public life until the hour of his death. In 
that last hour — that awful hour when the 
world receded from his conscious vision, 
when the unknown was but a threshold's 
width away, when the sable curtain fell for- 
ever between him and those he loved — ^he was 
the same Jerry Simpson whom I had known 
on the farm, in the small, curious combina- 
tions of village activity, in the superheated 
politics of the district, in Congress and in 
his retirement. This last hour was the proof 
of his whole life — it was the perfected and 
completed evidence of the sincerity of all his 
public and private actions and utterances, of 
the truth of his professions that he was the 
friend of man. 

234 



-i- 



JEKKY SIMPSON. 

Tempermentally Mr. Simpson was what 
is generally known as a good fellow. It was 
this quality in him that made so many of his 
political enemies his personal friends. It 
was this quality in him that made Kansas 
weep many honest tears when he passed 
away. He was a choice companion, never 
dull, stupid or even commonplace. I never 
knew a newspaper man who did not secretly 
admire his personality although the exigen- 
cies of party politics might have forced them 
into open and seemingly bitter condemnation 
of his methods. Interviewers and writers of 
contemporary activity loved him. He was to 
them what meat and drink and shade are to 
the travelers in the desert. In all his utter- 
ances there was material for a story and a 
quaintness and originality of expression that 
never failed to give a professionally desired 
tout ensemble to an interview. People have 

235 



THE STORY OF 

erroneously interpreted his tact and readi- 
ness to accommodate reporters as a fondness 
for notoriety. It was not. The truth is 
this, that Mr. Simpson was a sincere believer 
in certain reform principles and had an apos- 
tolic zeal in their diffusion among the people. 
Carried away by this zeal he often was frank 
and candid to the uttermost and outermost 
limits of danger in expression, and if news- 
paper men had loved him less he might have 
met many embarrassments. Usually sharp, 
keen and penetrative it is not an unfavorable 
commentary on the character of Mr. Simpson 
to say that he was universally admired by 
newspaper men. It was good to know him 
intimately as I did, and no one has a greater 
measure of respect for his memory. He had 
a genius that would have made him useful 
and conspicuous in any age of reform and 
betterment the world has ever experienced. 
Wichita, Kansas, 

236 



JEKKY SIMPSO:^. 

HOIST. CHAMP CLAEK. 

I valued Jerry Simpson very highly as 
a friend. He was kind, genial, bright and 
faithful. He possessed a wonderful assort- 
ment of general information and was much 
of a philosopher. Pie was one of the best 
rough and tumble debaters with whom I have 
served in thirteen years in Congress. His 
wit, humor, sarcasm and wide knowledge of 
men and things rendered him a master in 
that difficult field of human endeavor. 

If I should live a thousand years I shall 
never forget his skillful handling of Nelson 
Dingley and his silk hat with the London 
trade mark. That was a rich and racy inci- 
dent which enlivened the proceedings amaz- 
ingly. 

There was one occurence which must 
haved warmed the cockles of Jerry's heart. 
When he first appeared in the House subse- 

237 



THE STORY OF 

quent to a serious illness during which it was 
generally expected that he would die, the 
members cheered him till the glass ceiling 
was in danger of being cracked. The cheer- 
ing was not confined to Democrats, Populists 
and Silverites but the Republicans joined in 
heartily. That was a great day for Jerry 
and was proof positive that he stood high in 
the estimation of the House. 

I shall always cherish his memory, both 
as a personal friend and a public man. 
Bowling Green, Mo. 

HARRY LANDIS. 
I was Jerry Simpson's intimate acquain- 
tance and warm friend in Barber County. 
It seemed to me that there was no great sub- 
ject related to human welfare about which he 
had not read and striven to become informed. 
He knew not fear, either mental or physical. 

238 



THE STOEY OF 

How strong and full of healtli lie was in those 
days. 'No man in Barber County would have 
cared to arouse his righteous wrath and risk 
a physical encounter. He would not quickly 
resent an insult to himself but he would read- 
ily punish a man who was imposing upon 
another. He was the most skillful and pow- 
erful oarsman I ever saw, it was a delight to 
see the ease and grace with which he would 
manage a boat. 

I have often pondered upon the secret 
of his influence as a personal leader both in 
private life and in the political field. I think 
his great personal popularity arose from his 
abounding good nature and his genuine kind- 
liness. His power to sway men in politics y" 
rested chiefly in his own intense convictions. 
He was in a degree a fanatic. That which 
seemed to him to be truth he dwelt upon un- 
til he felt that it must and would prevail and 

239 



THE STOEY OF 

bring relief to the needy, suffering sons of 
men. 

He was a big, strong, fearless man, al- 
ways espousing the cause of the weak, always 
for the under dog in the fight. He was gen- 
tle as a woman, kind, sunny tempered, witty 
and alert. He was an incomparable "mixer'' 
and a steadfast friend. 
Kansas City, Missouri, 

LOUIS F. POST. 
Jerry Simpson's name first fell upon my 
ears in the Union Station restaurant at Kan- 
sas City. It was about two weeks after his 
first election to Congress, and the sensational 
victory of the Kansas populists was still fresh 
in the public mind. Sitting opposite me at 
the breakfast table — I, a tenderfoot freshly 
imported from !N^ew York — was a disgusted 
and garrulous man, who explained what he 

240 



JEREY SIMPSOiT. 

evidently regarded as a political episode of 
unprecedented degradation. ^^Vliy," said he 
at one point in his tirade and with an out- 
burst of contempt, 'they've elected a man to 
Congress over there who doesn't wear socks." 
The tone and manner were so significant that 
1 never stopped to reflect that a man's feet 
might be pretty decently clothed with stock- 
ings instead of socks; and there rose up in 
my imagination what was doubtless the 
counterpart of a picture that filled the imag- 
ination of my chance acquaintance. It was 
a picture of a ragged and barefooted tra.up, 
steeped in ignorance as well as poverty, "beat- 
ing" his way to Washington to take a seat in 
Congress. Such a Congressman seemed im- 
possible. But my informant assured me that 
what he said was true, and that the man's 
name was Jerry Simpson. 



241 



THE STOKY OF 

Carrying this picture of Jerry Simpson 
in my mind, I went over to Kansas. At 
Lawrence my best informant told me tliat 
Simpson was "a very adaptable man/' who in 
a couple of weeks would be ^^as much at home 
with a swallow-tail coat in a Washington 
drawing room as he was then without socks 
on a Kansas prairie." By the time I 
reached Topeka, he had grown larger, and I 
was told that ^ ^anyone who picked him up for 
a fool would make a mistake." Determined 
to see this curious man in his proper person, 
I started for Medicine Lodge, but stopped at 
Wichita, for I learned that he had passed me 
on his way to Topeka. A Wichita informant 
about him was prolific — all from Eepublican 
sources — and he fairly towered. Incidental- 
ly, too, I got a hint that he was a disciple of 
Henry George. When at last I met him at 
Topeka, I found this to be true; and a few 

242 



JEEKY SIMPSON. 

weeks later lie spoke for us Single Taxers at 
Cooper Union, New York City, in defense of 
absolute free trade. From that time until 
his death I felt it an honor to be able to num- 
ber his among my closest and most cherished 
friendships. 

As a man, Jerry Simpson was open, 
strong, unflinching; and he was as thought- 
ful, prudent and rational as he was frank and 
courageous. A politician of public spirit, 
his democracy was as thorough as Jefferson's. 
It permitted no distinction of race or creed 
or class or nationality. Like Henry George, 
whose intimate friend he became and whose 
disciple he was proud to be, Jerry Simpson 
stood for men. It was that that made him a 
free trader. It was that that made him a 
single taxer. He believed that the right to 
trade is a logical corollary of the right to 
the use of the earth, and that both are natural 

243 



THE STOEY OF 

rights of which governments cannot in jus- 
tice divest anyone. 

In loving his neighbor as himself hy 
holding aloft the principle of justice, Jerry 
Simpson made his life a Christian example 
in a higher than any sectarian sense. A 
democratic nobleman, who never forgot a 
friend or failed to forgive an enemy, a re- 
publican citizen who knew no class distinc- 
tions, an honest man whose honesty towered 
so far above policy as to be his guiding prin- 
ciple of thought and action regardless of per- 
sonal consequences, he was withal one of 
those rare patriots to whom, as to William 
Loyd Garrison, their country is the world 
and their countrymen all mankind. 
Chicago, Illinois. 

HON. W. D. VIITCENT. 

It was my privilege to serve as one of 

244 



JEKRY SIMPSOX. 

Mr. Simpson's colleagues in the Fifty-fifth 
Congress. During the five months extra 
session we lived in the same house and I was 
with him most of the time, which gave me 
an opportunity to study and appreciate his 
simplicity and his greatness. He was one of 
the most agreeable and entertaining compan- 
ions I ever met. He was always witty but 
never tiresome. His witticisms came spon- 
taneously and yet there was philosophy in 
what he said. Some men are humorists be- 
cause they make it a study and try to be fun- 
ny. Their forced wit soon becomes tiresome. 
Jerry was humorous because he could not be 
otherwise, and he was just as brilliant and 
entertaining at the end of a month's daily 
conversation as he was in the beginning. In 
debate he showed the same characteristics. 
He was always ready. Quick as a spark of / 
electricity, you could no more knock him off 

245 



THE STOEY OF 

liis feet than you could prostrate a solid rub- 
ber ball, l^othing pleased bim better than 
to have his opponents fire questions at him — 
the faster they came the better he liked it. 
His answers came as quick as a flash, and if 
he had known a week in advance what the 
questions were going to be his answers could 
not have been more complete and to the 
point. More than once with his sarcasm and 
irony did he make such old debaters as Ding- 
ley and Grosvenor regret that they had inter- 
rupted him. In his controversies with the 
big men of the house he appeared to be as 
cool and unconcerned as if he were engaged 
in the pastime of telling stories to a crowd of 
schoolboys. 

In the Fifty-fifth congress Simpson was 
practically the leader, not only of the Popu- 
lists, but of the Democrats on the floor of the 
House. The man whom the Democrats had 

246 



:K. ' II 



JEKEY SIMPSON. 

selected as their leader was too conservative 
and lie was almost lost sight of when Jerry 
made his bold fight on the Keed rules. Simp- 
son became impatient with the Speaker's rul- 
ings and he waged a war on the '^czar" that 
will go down in history as one of the events 
of the national House of Representatives. 
Jerry was positively in the right in that con- 
troversy and he never lost an opportunity to 
harass the Speaker. At times Reed would be- 
come so exasperated that he could scarcely 
control his temper. Jerry dared to say to 
the Speaker's face what other members were 
almost afraid to say behind his back. ISTot- 
withstanding all this Mr. Reed was his per- 
sonal friend and admired his brilliancy and 
audacity. 

Let us hope that the life and character 
of Jerry Simpson will be an inspiration to 



247 



THE STORY OF 

younger men to take up tlie fight for human- 
ity where he left off. 
Clay Center, Kansas. 

HAMLIl^ GAELAND. 

As I look back upon my acquaintance 
with Jerry Simpson I remember most vivid- 
ly his humor, his quick wit and his kindli- 
ness. We were drawn together first by our 
common interest in Henry George and his 
land reform but I came to like ^'The Sockless 
Sage" because of the quaint charm of his 
manner and the sincerity of his convictions. 
I saw much of him in Washington and we 
used to bicycle about the suburbs together. 
We conspired together in St. Louis to get 
the land plank into the Peoples Party plat- 
form and always I found him single-hearted 
in his desire to make the world better. 
Handicapped by the lack of education in the 

248 



JERKY SIMPSOISr. 

formal sense lie nevertheless was a man of 
knowledge and I enjoyed his talk qnite as 
much as his speeches. I saw him on the 
floor of the House during the time when 
^The Alliance" had its "Wedge" in Congress 
and it was a delight to me to see him measure 
swords with some of the polished fencers of 
the floor. He was quite able to take care of 
himself and Speaker Reed always had a 
twinkle in his eye when Jerry rose to reply. 

He was a sturdy democrat in the best 
and broadest sense of the term a "Henry 
George democrat" as the phrase at that time 
expressed it. 

He will long remain in the memories of 
those who knew him as one of the most pic- 
turesque figures of western politics. 
Chicago, Illinois. 



249 



THE STORY OF 

MRS. je:n'ote l. moi^roe. 

The first time I saw Jerry Simpson was 
at mj home on Capitol Hill. I was enter- 
taining the Washington Single Tax Club. 
Mr. Simpson had been in the city but a 
short time and was a stranger to most of 
those present. He was a distinct surprise to 
us all. He looked like a theological student. 
He talked very little during the evening, but 
he was in no wise self conscious or ill at ease. 
The few remarks which were elicited from 
him evinced a thorough knowledge of Single 
Tax theories. 

After the meeting, I remarked, "If this 
Mr. Simpson is a Kansas ignoramus, I would 
like to meet some of the wise men of that 
state." 

A short time thereafter I made the ac- 
quaintance of Mrs. Simpson, and their son, 
Lester, and it was my great pleasure to be 

250 



JEKEY SIMPSOlSr. 

intimate with the family during their entire 
residence in Washington. 

I greatly admired Speaker Reed, for 
two reasons, first, because he was an honest 
statesman, second because he had a genuine, 
personal liking for Jerry Simpson. 

It is upon Jerry Simpson as a public 
man of distinction that the memory of most 
people will linger; I like best to remember 
him in his simple, everyday, home life, where 
I ever found him courteous, genial, sincere. 
He was never effusive in his protestations of 
desire to benefit his fellow men, but he ever 
impressed me as one to whom the thought of 
being of service was never absent. 

During Mr. Simpson's severe illness, I 
remained at their home for two days ; there 
was a continual stream of callers — most of 
them congressmen, and all of them eager to 
render any possible service. It was during 
this time of anxiety that I learned of the 
warm friendship existing between Tom John- 
son and Jerry Simpson, and also of the warm 

251 



THE STOKY OE 

personal regard of very many of his col- 
leagues who were not at all in sympathy with 
his political views. 

I esteem it one of the privileges of my 
life to have known Jerry Simpsoa. 

Washington, D. 0, 

JUDGE W. W. GATEWOOD. 

When Jerry Simpson died God took 
from among us one of ^Nature's noblemen. 
He was a diamond, not in the rough, for, by 
self culture he had made himself a polished 
gentleman. When Abraham Lincoln was 
splitting rails in the wilderness of Illinois, 
he was a prophet undiscovered. The fullness 
of time revealed the true character of Lin- 
coln to the world, and the whole earth has 
united in canonizing him. Simpson was the 
same sterling character of man as Lincoln. 
Of and from among the common people, yet 
in no sense was he provincial or prescribed by 
the limits or prejudices of any class. As he 
grew the horizon of his mental vision extend- 

252 



JEKEY SIMPSON. 

ed until Jerry Simpson in the meridian of 
his manhood was one of the broadest minded 
men and one of the most liberal in his views 
among all the public men of onr day. With- 
out early opportunities for education or ad- 
vancement, by the natural force of character 
that was in him, by the laudable ambition 
he always had to do something worthy among 
his fellows, by his devotion to the right as it 
was given him to see the right, and by honest, 
constant, faithful discharge of every duty that 
fell to him to do, he gradually and steadily 
arose in the appreciation of those about him 
until among the first statesmen of his country 
he became recognized and appreciated as a 
thinker and a leader worthy of the highest 
consideration and the most implicit confid- 

ence. 

The writer knew Jerry Simpson as a 
warm Dersonal friend. His life was much 
that every father should wish his son to be- 
come In his business life he was faithful, 
honest and true. In a word, Jerry Simpson, 

253 



THE STORY OF 

from first to last, was an honest man — the 
noblest work of God. 
Roswell, New Mexico. 

C. W. DeFEEEST. 

Honorable Jerry Simpson was, in my 
mind, one of the most companionable men 
with whom I have ever had the pleasure of 
associating. Generous to a fault, magnani- 
mous in spirit and action, he was always will- 
ing to respond to the occasion. 

My association with him in the Land 
and Immigration business, extending over a 
considerable period of time, was a great edu- 
cation for me. I shall always look back and 
remember with pleasure, the period in which 
we strove together, in directing and bringing 
people to the Pecos Valley. \Ye never had 
an unpleasant word, and I know of no one 
held dearer in the hearts of his friends and 
constituents than Jerry Simpson. 
Roswell, Neiv Mexico. 
254 



JERKY SIMPSOISr. 



ROSWELL, K M., RECORD. 
'Not for the honors he had won in the 
past nor for high office he once held, but for 
his everyday personality as a neighbor and 
private citizen, his leadership and earnest ef- 
forts in presenting to the world the advant- 
ages of the valley which he chose for spend- 
ing his declining years in peaceful simplicity 
of living, the city of Roswell and the Pecos 
valley sincerely mourns the death of Jerry 
Simpson, a good and useful man. Unspoiled 
by success, dignified and determined enough 
on occasion, he was childlike in his frank en- 
joyment of the simplest relations. Every- 
body called him by his first name, and yet 
he was none the less respected. It w^as not 
a vulgar familiarity that caused his friends 
to refer to him as "Our Jerry." It was 

rather, like the parental pride whose heart 
with love in contemplating the achieve- 
ments of ''our boy" — cherished by the humble 
fireside, and looked upon with wonder and 
admiration as his voice was raised in the halls 
of the great. 

255 



THE STOEY OF 



HEIsTRY W. Y0U:N"G. 

Jerry Simpson was one of tlie most orig- 
inal and unique personalities the present 
generation has seen and at the same time 
wholesomely human and genuinely lovable. 
Although so illiterate that he couldn't write ^ 
a dozen words without misspelling several of 
them, he was none the less a great man. In 
the halls of Congress he weilded an influence 
greater than any other member of the minor- 
ity, and in the thrust and parry of debate he 
had no peer. He was as quick-witted as an 
Irishman and his repartee came like a flash 
of lightning out of a clear sky. Politically, 
he was, like Mayor Tom Johnson, a single 
taxer, a disciple of Henry George. 

Knowing him intimately, as one knows 
a man with whom and against whom he has 
battled in conventions and committee rooms, 
and with whom he has talked familiarly by 
the hour, I feel impelled to say that while 
Jerry was human and fallible, like the rest 
of us, he was a clean, honest, straightforward 

256 



JEEE7 SIMPSON. 



self-respecting American who had at heart 
the interests of all the people and worked for 
them as he saw the light. 

Jerry contributed in no small degree 
to the gaiety of the nation and he made the 
most prosy political subjects bright and di- 
verting by his original w^ay of looking at 
things and by his homely anecdotes and il- 
lustrations. It would be well for the people 
of the United States if there were lots more 
like Jerry in public life. But he stood alone 
and singular, the only one of his kind and by 
far the more interesing on that account. 

It seems well and fitting that he should 
have come back to Kansas to die. Although 
he was born over the border in Canada, it was 
here that he made the long step from city 
marshal of Medicine Lodge to member of the 
United States Congress. His story is part 
of the heritage of our state, and we are glad 
that the last scenes upon which his mortal 
eyes gazed were those of one of our greatest 
valleys and the last skies whose mornings 

25Y 



THE STOKY OF 

brightened and whose sunsets flamed over 
him were those of the commonwealth he 
loved and honored, and which had honored 
him. 

Independence, Kansas. 

MES. COKxi G. LEWIS. 

Many people who admired Jerry Simp- 
son as a public man, knew little of his de- 
lightful personality. He had the reserve of 
the genuinely refined, and was most loveable 
as a friend. He was a guest in our home 
many times, coming the first time with Mrs. 
Simpson. He had been very ill and was 
really not able to speak, and to meet and to 
shake hands with the crowds of people that 
always swarmed into town to hear him. I 
shall ahvays remember the exquisite care his 
^vife gave him when she brought him to the 
house in a state of exhaustion after the hand- 
shaking ordeal. 

We always had enchanting hours with 
books, when he was vv^ith us, and long looks 

268 



JEREY SIMPSOl^. 

backvrarf] over the pathway of the race to its 
present place, and made many plans to help 
hurry the coming of the day of brotherhood. 
The books we loved best are more precious 
because he has read iiloud from them. He 
had a way of stopping in the midst of a 
thought and drawling, "Say do you remem- 
ber what Hugo, or perhaps Emerson or Mat- 
zini, said about that — ^haven't you got it 
somewhere ?" Mostly we had it, and some of 
the books have turned down corners yet, as 
he left them. Sometimes there were friends 
in, to share the beautiful hours. Xo matter 
how much we tried to keep avv'ay from it, 
every talk on the problems of humanity, 
came untimately to Henry George's solution 
in "Progress and Poverty." We have a 
copy of this book that he gave us. It was in 
paper covers and he had been reading it on 
the train during a campaign. It has a few 
penciled comments on the margins, and is 
hallov/ed by memories of the times three of 
us read that wonderful last chapter together. 

259 



THE STORY OF 



Warden Haskell had this book bound for ns 
by a convict at the penitentiary. It seemed 
to me that was what it needed ; to have been 
written by Henry George ; to have been 
loved and read by Jerry Simpson ; and to 
be bound by one who had suffered; for the 
lives of both writer and lover were beaten 
out against the bars of life, trying to ease 
the burdens of mankind. I remember once 
when Mr. Simpson came to Kinsley, Mr. 
Lewis was in Topeka taking care of the 
speaker's bureau during a hard fought po- 
litical campaign. Jerry came in Friday 
evening, and went to bed with the usual 
good night, and "rest until you want to 
get up." We were in the midst of an excit- 
ing local political fight and I was running 
the Graphic. I went to the office early Sat- 
urday, leaving the household in charge of 
my mother, and a faithful maid. The town 
was full of people, for Jerry was to speak 
at the opera house in the afternoon, and at 
eleven a. m. there was to be a procession 

260 



JERKY SIMPSOIsr. 

headed by the speaker. Jerry had been in- 
formed by the chairman of the arrange- 
ments. I refreshed his memory as to the 
pkn Friday evening. Along about 10:30 
Saturday the chairman of the congressional 
committee, came to the office after the 
speaker and said the procession was form- 
ing. I said ''he was very tired yesterday 
and I am afraid he is still asleep at our 
house. Won't you go down and ask mother 
to have him called at once?" The chair- 
man went. He came back surrounded by a 
chilly official atmosphere, and said icily, 
"Jerry isn't there." ''He has taken your 
three children and gone for a walk on the 
prairies, and your mother says he has been 
ffcne an hour and he knew all about this pa- 
rade." I was aghast. I went home at once, 
and reproached mother for having let the 
hero of the day escape. Eleven o'clock 
came and no Jerry. The procession had 
formed, the horses were prancing and the 
wind blowing, and again the chairman ap- 

261 



THE STOEY OF 

peared, about as mad as a man can be. He 
said bitingly to me: '^Is he out with those 
children yet ?'' I felt most deeply my guilt 
in being the mother of the three who had so 
endeared themselves to Jerry. Eleven 
thirty came, and I was desperately trying 
to smooth the ruffled plumage of the chair- 
man, while mother and the maid kept a 
sharp lookout for the run-a-ways. Finally 
the chairman took his departure, icicles 
crackling from his outraged person at each 
step. Mother and I felt most decidedly, at 
this point, that politics was not woman's 
sphere. The procession, without a person- 
age, wended its way about the little 
town, a sense of resentment against Jerry 
and me pervading its entire presence. About 
one o'clock the wanderers came home. They 
were so happy, so dirty, and so tired, I had 
not the heart to say a word. Their arms 
were full of long sweet grasses, lacy brown 
^veeds and late autumn flowers. Two of 
the children had thrust a branch from a 

262 



JERRY SIMPSOK 

Cottonwood, througli a big tumble weed, and 
were towing it home in triumph, to show 
their grandmother. They unloaded their 
trophies on the veranda and besides the 
things visible there were hidden treasures — 
stones, a small lizard, a few late frogs, some 
curious seed pods and a weather-beaten 
bird's nest. As gently as I could I broke 
the news of the heroless parade to Jerry. 
He said, '^Oh, I don't care; I hate proces- 
sions anyway. I was so tired and I had 
a walk that's rested me enough to last a 
week," and he turned to arbitrate the ques- 
tion, as to whether the lizard belonged to 
the six-year-old boy, who saw it first, the 
seven-year-old boy, who caught it, or their 
sister of ten, who carried it home in her 
apron pocket. I was not to be trifled with 
further. I insisted upon a proper toilet, a 
hurried luncheon and telephoned to the com- 
mittee that their candidate would be at 
the Graphic office ready for a conference 
with the party leaders at one thirty. When 

263 



THE STOEY OF 

we got there tlie atmospliere would have chill- 
ed an Esquimo. Jerry felt bady for he loved 
people, and hated to grieve them, much as 
he abhorred anything in the shape of display. 
That night at dinner we all felt depressed. 
Finally Jerry said, "Well Jim ought to have 
stayed home and tended to this thing. AAHiat 
did he go away for anyhow?" "Yes," I 
said, "he is the cause of all the trouble. He 
should have been here instead of leaving 
this meeting to me." Mother straightened 
up and began a defense of her son-in-law, 
w^hom she would not have blamed for Jerry's 
forgetfulness. We laughed and soon forgot 
the annoyances. Friends came In for the 
evening, and Jerry charmed and delighted 
us until midnight with his conversation. His 
keen mind always dominated a company. 
A great reader, a profound thinker, a lover 
of men, a man to whom shams were abhor- 
rent, a gentle kindly spirit, whose wit was 
keen as a flame, as a guest he left in our 
home a trail of sweet scented memories. 
Kinsley, Kansas. 

264 



JEEEY SIMPSOIsr. 



JUDGE FKAOT^ DOSTER 

There is a species of justice akin to tli3 
retributive whicli compels us finally to ac- 
cept the creed of those who because of it wo 
first persecuted and reviled; but rarely in- 
deed is the grace given us to admit to the 
victim of our hate and scorn that we have 
been converted to the saving reason and-pow- 
er of his superior virtue. Paul, it is true, 
confessed to the face of those he had scoffed 
at and scourged ; we rather than make avow- 
al to those whom we have wronged because 
of their faith, meanly conceal our conver- 
sion, or more often, and meaner still, usurp 
the place of the prophet who had told us of 
the better way, and pretend to have been, 
instead of he, the first apostle of the right- 
eousness he had preached. We seem never 
to be able frankly to admit that we were in 
the wrong and another in the right. If we 
loake the admission at all it is always so 
compromised and qualified with ^'buts" and 
^'ifs" that the virtue of that ''honest confes- 

265 



THE STORY OF 



sion wliicli is good for the soul" becomes de- 
prived of all efficacy by the lies which ac- 
company its telling. 

Jerry Simpson in what he preached il- 
lustrated more than anyone of this genera- 
tion the strange anomalies of human nature 
just mentioned. In his public career he 
was calumniated and reviled more than any 
man of his time. What obloquy and re- 
proach did not fall to his lot had either not 
been conceived in thought or else failed of 
expression because of the limitations of 
speech. The superlatives of contempt, ridi- 
cule, epithet, and anathema were inadequate 
to voice the disapproval and contempt of him 
and his doctrines. They sound strange now, 
those indictments under which he was ar- 
raigned at the bar of partisan malignity and 
hate. It will be profitable to glance at some 
of them so as to know how radically in so 
brief a space of time the law of political high 
crimes and misdemeanors has changed. He 
said that party politics was corrupt and that 

266 



JERKY SIMPSOX. 

party organizations existed chiefly for the 
purpose of public plunder. The sickening 
revelations of boodle, graft and fraud in the 
courts and other investigating tribunals seem 
to justify the suspicion of everyone in offic- 
ial life. He said that avaricious trusts and 
combines were possessing themselves of the 
substance of the industrial toiler and should 
be compelled to let go. The universal judg- 
ment of the country, voiced in particular by 
its president, now approves what Jerry 
Simpson said, and demands that the trusts 
let go. He said the people as a whole should 
own and operate what the individual could 
not own and manage for himself. The 
socialization of the public utilities of light, 
v/ater, communication and transportation is 
now the accepted philosophy of the vast ma- 
jority — is practiced in numerous instances, 
while in all other instances we only await 
decision as to the available time and methods 
of realization. Not to further call over the 
list, he said a dozen other truths of large mo- 

267 



THE STOEY OF 

ment and of like kind to tliose mentioned, 
which like them fell upon dull ears or were 
ridiculed bj scoffing tongues, but every one 
of which in less than a score of years has 
been accepted by populace and politician, 
and on which those who crucified him for 
uttering them are now riding into office. 
With the exception of what Jerry Simpson 
thought on the financial topic, viz., the kind 
of material out of which money should be 
made, absolutely everyone of his views has 
passed into the accepted creed of the two 
controlling political parties of the nation, 
and it only needs a financial panic or a re- 
currence of hard times to turn men's thoughts 
to a serious consideration whether, after all, 
he was not right as to that. Less than twen- 
ty years ago, for preaching what everybody 
now believes, he was the most illy thought of 
and worst abused man of his time. Only 
his nimble wit and contagious good humor 
saved him from actual physical violence; 
now his erstwhile enemies speak of him with 

268 



JERRY SIMPSOK 

respect, some of tliein even with affection. 
He was a man whom not only Kansas but 
the nation will presently remember to love. 
Topeka, Kansas, 

MRS. LESTER SIMPSOK 

I think few girls feel toward their 
father-in-law as I did toward Mr. Simpson. 
I conld never see him in any light except as 
a most perfect husband and father. He was 
always kind and generous in his home and 
always had a kind word and pleasant smile 
with which to greet us all. I never met him 
that he did not greet me with a smile and a 
^^Hello Gerlie.'' 

He never told his family of an^'thing 
that might worry them, but he would tell us 
of the better things that were in store for us. 

I was with him a great deal in his last 
illness and while we all knew he was suffer- 
ing untold pain I never heard him speak ond 
word of complaint. 

269 



THE STOKY OF 

Oh, there is so much to be said about 
Daddie. 

Lipscomb, Texas. 

MRS. JEERY SIMPSO:Nr. 

I want to say a few words directly to 
the personal friends of my husband. I 
want them to know how truly he valued their 
friendship. Especially do I want to tell 
the 7th District friends how grateful he was 
for their kindness, their warm support and 
for their contributions which made it pos- 
sible for him to go through his first cam- 
paign for Congress without financial embar- 
rassment. Dear old friends, he spoke of 
you so often. 

Oh, how many precious memories I 
have of my good husband. How wonderful 
were his patience and his tender care of me 
during the years of my invalidism. His 
was the gentler nature, mine the more im- 
petuous. ]^ever once in all his life did he 
speak in any but gentle, loving tones to our 

2Y0 



JERKY SIMPSON. 

little son. And oh, what delight he took in 
our little grandson, Jerry Simpson, Jr. 

My husband did not leave us wealth 
but he left a far more priceless legacy, in 
the record of his public career and his un- 
tarnished name. And it is my hope that 
our son Lester, his wife Gerlie, of whom he 
was so fond, and their two sons, Jerry and 
Russell, may ever find inspiration and in- 
centive to noble living in this book. 

The world is better I am sure because 
of the life and work of my Jerry. 
Faithfully yours, 

Jane Simpson. 

Wichita, Kansas. 



271 



THE STOKY OF 



Speeches of 
HOI^. JERRY SIMPS0:N' 

52nd, 53d and 55th Congresses. 

^^nd Congress, First Session. 
Eree Cotton Ties. Appendix to Congression- 
al Record pp. 132—140. (Chapters 
XXV — XXX of Henry George's Protec- 
tion and Eree Trade.) 

Meat Inspection 1773 

Indians 1514 

Wealth of Country 3728 

E'aval appropriation 3230 

Tariff 3107—3114 

Irrigation 4396 

Post Office 4820—4831 

Personal explanation 7084 

52??^ Congress, Second Session. 

Pensions x\ppendix 49 — 50 

6Srd Congress, First Session. 

Silver 486—493. Appendix 50—51 

Earm Mortgages 927—928 

Railroad-road stations in Territories 

2717, 2735 

6Sd Congress, Second Session. 

Silver Bullion Coinage 2517 

Appendix 517 — 522 
272 



JEERY SIMPSOK. 

Western Brancli of Soldiers Home 

Appendix 645 — 647 

Admission of :N'ew Mexico 270—272 

Tariff 772-777-905 

Admission of Utah 210—211 

Central Labor Union, Worcester, Mass. 1274 

Oklahoma town sites 2261 

6dd Congress, Third Session. 
Currency Legislation . . .Appendix 194, 383 

Tariff and Income Tax Appendix 382 

Debate on Pension bill 

(Elizabeth Brewer) 1 • 127—1130 

Pacific R. R. Indebtedness l'S'04 

Printing U. S. l^-otes 1383—1384 

Sugar Duty ; • • • • ^^^^ 

Debate on ITaval appropriation bill 

2240—2244, 2460—61 . 

International Money Conference 3215, 3246 
Fifty fifth Congress, First Session. 

India Famine sufferers 568 — 569 

Personal Privilege ^^^9 ^^^ 

Tariff 273—275, 399, 491—492 

Pearl Harbor 1025, 1026 

Monetary Commission 2966 

55^7i Congress, Second Session. 

Payment of bonds of U. S. 

Appendix 111 — 116 

273 



THE STORY OF 



War Revenue bill 

xippendix 549 — 550, 4395 — 4406 

Civil-service Law 546 — 548 

Cotton Industry 810 

Cuba 803—804 

Governmest expenditures 947 — 948 

Kansas Affairs 949, 950, 951 

Transportation of Bullion 565 — 566 

Rivers and Harbors 2196 — 2197 

Paris exposition 2058 — 2059 

Second class mail matter 2375 — 2377 

Naval Appropriation bill 3465 — 3467 

Election of Senators by the people 

4816—4817 

Pacific R. R. Indebtedness 6723—6724 

66tJi Congress, Third Session. 

Xavy personnel bill 668—669 

Relief of William Cramp &; Sons Ship and 
Engine Building Company. , . .860 — 862 

Army reorganization 1001 — 1006 

Indemnity to Spain 1958 

Army appropriation bill 2329 

Speech of Thomas Corwin 2743 

Philippine Islands 2408 



274 



